Zinda
Community Member
I didn't have the foresight to put a drip pan in my 110 gal custom waterbox. Then, of course, I've had a couple of spills (outside of the tank in the RO/DI and while drip acclimating fish), which didn't do wonders for our wood floor. So, I decided I needed to add one after the fact, both to collect any water that might leak and to make it easier for the leak detector to detect it. The problem with any leak detector is that it won't work unless water touches it and water could spill or flow basically in any direction. Unless there is some kind of "pan" collecting water from a wide area and flowing it to the detector, it isn't going to go off unless the water just happens to go to that spot (which it didn't in either of my 2 "water events" so far).
My big problem was that the tank is completely set up, and the waterbox sump takes up the entire front-back space and 2/3 of the left-right space under the tank (see photo below). You can only get it in or out by removing one of the vertical aluminum beams in the cabinet, which I'm not willing to do with a full tank above. I could have drained everything and started over, but that's no fun! Here you can see what the sump looks like in the cabinet:
So, I needed some way to get a drip pan in there without removing the sump. Options I considered and discarded:
1) Cutting the bottom and four sides of a plexiglass drip pan and putting it together in the sump, piece by piece and then sealing with silicone. Seemed really awkward given that the sump takes up so much space. Unclear if I'd be able to get the silicone in well. Maybe with a *really* long tip on it?
2) Getting one of those silicon rubber mats for putting under pet dishes. This would have been ideal, but i could not find one that was the right size
I ended up deciding to take a piece of tarp, "origami" fold it into a drip pan and use that. Because it is a tarp, it can be folded, scrunched, squeezed, etc. into the space, and pulled under the sump like a big plastic sock. It also could be made to hold a ton of water so I'd be less worried about if the sump ever gives out, and it goes up the sides enough to catch any splashing or leaks from the plumbing.
I built a model of the interior space of the cabinet out of PVC Pipes, folded the tarp around it and taped it using Gorilla tape.
I purposefully made sure that the tarp it was a giant square that had no cuts in it so it would hold water. I just folded the corners so that it made a "pan shape". The tape is just there to hold the folds in place:
Then I took it off the PVC pipe model and I and a buddy slid the whole thing under the (emptied) sump and up behind all the wiring, etc. Here's what it looks like installed. You can see how it goes pretty far up the back wall to catch any splashes:
I thought I'd post in case anyone else has this challenge.
I'm curious if others have found a way to solve this differently?
My big problem was that the tank is completely set up, and the waterbox sump takes up the entire front-back space and 2/3 of the left-right space under the tank (see photo below). You can only get it in or out by removing one of the vertical aluminum beams in the cabinet, which I'm not willing to do with a full tank above. I could have drained everything and started over, but that's no fun! Here you can see what the sump looks like in the cabinet:
So, I needed some way to get a drip pan in there without removing the sump. Options I considered and discarded:
1) Cutting the bottom and four sides of a plexiglass drip pan and putting it together in the sump, piece by piece and then sealing with silicone. Seemed really awkward given that the sump takes up so much space. Unclear if I'd be able to get the silicone in well. Maybe with a *really* long tip on it?
2) Getting one of those silicon rubber mats for putting under pet dishes. This would have been ideal, but i could not find one that was the right size
I ended up deciding to take a piece of tarp, "origami" fold it into a drip pan and use that. Because it is a tarp, it can be folded, scrunched, squeezed, etc. into the space, and pulled under the sump like a big plastic sock. It also could be made to hold a ton of water so I'd be less worried about if the sump ever gives out, and it goes up the sides enough to catch any splashing or leaks from the plumbing.
I built a model of the interior space of the cabinet out of PVC Pipes, folded the tarp around it and taped it using Gorilla tape.
I purposefully made sure that the tarp it was a giant square that had no cuts in it so it would hold water. I just folded the corners so that it made a "pan shape". The tape is just there to hold the folds in place:
Then I took it off the PVC pipe model and I and a buddy slid the whole thing under the (emptied) sump and up behind all the wiring, etc. Here's what it looks like installed. You can see how it goes pretty far up the back wall to catch any splashes:
I thought I'd post in case anyone else has this challenge.
I'm curious if others have found a way to solve this differently?
