critique my refugium

im getting ready to got to my lfs to pick up a 40 gal tank for this project. i plan on using a swc skimmer, 1-2 small pumps for reactor's and a mag 9.5 for my return.

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Not a lot wrong with that. I might suggest some minor tweaks.

Make your bubble traps 1.5" wide. So 3" total. They will be more effective.

Nothing wrong with your skimmer section being 12". You will need a stand which you have... but your skimmer is at 12" and your fuge is at 17" which does not leave much room for drain back when you turn off your return pump. I can't tell you exactly what you need, but you need to consider how much room you have.

Your return lines need to be as high as possible to minimize drain back. Then you need enough room for what does. 10" is a pretty common depth for a skimmer compartment. Leaves 2" to play with since most skimmers are best in 7-8 inches.

Also your fuge does not need to be deep. The pods don't care, and it just takes more light to get to the macro. My Fuge was 15".... 5" for DSB and 10" deep... it could have easily been 8"(13 total) or even 6"(11" total) would not have been that bad.

So yes you want volume, but you also need room. Taking an inch or two off both will not hurt anything.

Other than that looks great.

 

Looks good, the middle baffle of the bubble trap doesn't need to be any larger than the lower baffles.

 

It looks great to me. Will you be dosing carbon and GFO in the reactors?

 

ok so after some tweaks this is what i have this.

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powerman the only thing im having problems with is the drain back, cant realy seem to grasp it, but i am concerned. what do you think of check valves?

2in10 thx man that will save a little cash on materials.

and seano i think ill be running phos and carbon but was thinking of trying some of those bio pellets.

 

Looks good to me. I have the same sump. 40g and I did it the same as how you are doing yours. I think I had to remove on baffle in the skimmer section cuz I upgraded and the new skimmer wouldn't fit. How are you going to feed the fuge?

 

i think ill be teeing of the drain, but i have not totally ruled out teeing off return pump.

 

Don't bother with check valves. There are tank volume calculators around and there is one on this site.

So your return pump lines go back up to the tank.... how ever deep they are in the tank, is how much that will siphon out of the tank when you turn off the return pump. So use a calculator to see how much 6" of water in your display tank is and that is how much you will have. To minimize that keep the lines high, and drill a shiphon break in the line slightly below the water line. The siphon will break when it get to that.... keep it below the water line so you don't have splash and salt creep.

So what ever that amount is ultimately needs to be caught in the sump. Don't use check valves. All mechanical devices can fail. Instead, just leave enough room. You will have plenty for what you want to do using a 40g. You just need to do the math.... what you think will drain back... and add up the volumes of all the room in the compartments. It's pretty easy. You can do it all on paper and be right before you get everything wet.

 

There is no need. Using the return pump sets up a recirculation. You are feeding the fuge with partly cleaned up water from the skimmer. You are recircing pods. And you are not passing raw tank water through the fuge to feed the pods and macro. Also you are moving more water than is needed using more power and adding more heat.

The only benefit is that since part of the return is recircing, you never have to worry about running your return pump dry. However, that should never happen and the cons outweigh that "never should happen" benefit.

 

you dont necessarily need sand, a powerhead and cheato would be nice in that chamber