29gal Sump/Fuge Design

Does anyone have any plans for sump/fuge design for a 29gal that has the fuge in the middle?

 

I can draw those plans up for you, but I would like to know why you want the fuge in the middle?
It is better to have the fuge on the opposite side of the return from your skimmer section.

 

Can you educate me in this? I guess I never understood the water flow that way. Would I have to split the input? The skimmer for size is the Coralife 125

 

Sump/refugium basics.
1: The sump is a place to process your water and make it cleaner for our DT. Therefore I consider it a filter. With all the extras you can put in it, it makes it an excellent place to hide equipment. ie: heaters, skimmer, refugiums, reactors, and others.
2: You only need the amount of water going into your sump that your skimmer can process, ie: if your skimmer can process 300 gph you don't need any more than that running to your sump. There are only two reasons I can see to have more 1 is to feed your refugium, and the other is to add more flow in your DT. But we mainly control flow in the tank with Powerheads.
3: Skimmers create micro bubbles, some more than others, therefore you should have a baffle system before your return section to help remove those bubbles. These baffles can consist of 3 pieces of glass at least 1" apart, the first or third baffle, which ever is higher will control your skimmer section water level.
4: Return section is where water evaporation takes place. You need enough water in this section to keep your pump running with daily evaporation in mind. This is also where you will place your ATO if you add one, and where you will run your reactors (Carbon, GFO, and Calcium). These need the cleanest water to work at peak proficiency.
5: Refugium is a place for your copepods, and amphepods to grow, that is why it is called a refuge. We put other things in the refugium to assist us in nitrate and phosphate removal but this is not the main reason for the refugium. That being said, we don't need the full flow of our system running into our fuge. If we run 300gph in a 5g fuge then we would be sweeping the pods away and this would be going against what we are trying to achieve.
6: Plumbing the sump is pretty straight forward. You run a drain line to the skimmer section, into a filter sock or some rock rubble or something to help reduce drainage noise. From a horizontal area in the pipe you run a tee with a ball valve on it to your refugium. The reason you use the drain pipe to feed the fuge, is you want the dirty water to be used to feed the pods and your DSB, and macroalgea and the reason you do it at a horizontal place is to make it easier to control flow into the refugium. Then you just fine tune the amount of flow you think is good. I believe 10x the volume of your fuge will suffice, you could go more or less. You find what works for you.

Make sure you know how much flow you need through your sump and determine your head height before you purchase a return pump. This will make sure you have the correct amount of flow to your tank. There are diagrams and charts to help you on these values. If you need them I will try and find them for you.

 

Great thanks for the information.

 

There you go...