Experienced sump builders, I need your thoughts on a project.

So I have simplified the design slightly to make the refugium larger, and require less materials.

As you can see, I've also included an idea as to where the media will go, let me know if this doesn't seem like it's going to work.

 

+1000 a nice big quality skimmer will do more for your quality than all the refugium mud, caulerpa, chaeto, live rock, and deep sand bed in the world. not saying you shouldnt have those things, i think they are great, but alwaysmake room for a nice big in-sump protein skimmer.

i had a massive pH and cyanobacteria problem that almost overtook my tank, never had a prot skimmer for the first 8 months i had my tank, the fuge with dsb and chaeto and the addition of an eheim can filter running massive amounts of carbon greatly slowed the cyano spread to where it was manageable with weekly cleanings.

cheapest 35$ protein skimmer and a week later im pullin out some weak tea liquid, th day i woke up and had a collection cup 1/4 full of the light brown liquid all my cyano had died....

i really thought id be the guy who was skimmerless forever, they are just so damn effective im amazed.

 

if anything do two things, have a dedicated section for your protein skimmer, and overengineer your bubble trapping baffles, microbubbles are so obnoxious.

 

I have some good news and some bad news.

Bad news, i'm trying to replace that cracked panel and it's being a super *****, I'm having a hard time getting the last piece of broken glass out which is holding up the entire build.

Good news is that I got my pumps from HF, and they are awesome. It's able to empty move about 4 gallons of water in less than 30 seconds via a 3/4" outlet, so I can easily run a single return pump. The craftsmanship of this pump appears excellent and i'm happy to get so much out of a $9 pond pump. The only thing I was unable to check was the impeller shaft. I was having a hard time getting the impeller housing removed, so I just skipped right to the testing phase. It's very fast to prime and very quiet.