How big is too big?

Hey guys! I just bought a 110 gallon acrylic tank and plan on turning my old 55 gallon into a sump/fuge. The plan at this point is to have a FOWLR tank and probably expand to a full reef system in the future. I understand that the water through the refugium needs to be low flow. I will use Koralias in the display tank for water movement. I'm looking for pump suggestions to get the water back to the tank which will be about 5 1/2 feet above the refugium. The display tank is drilled. Thanks

 

For the fuge, a good rule of thumb is 1/10 the size of the display and 1/10 the flow in gallons.
Example: 110g display, 11g fuge w/11gph across it.
As for a pump..you also need to know weither you going with a internal or external pump, plus what size skimmer are you going to use.
I would buy one external pump to run to a manifold and return you water to the display and run your skimmer off of it. This way you are not adding heat to the water or take the risk of a pump shorting out in the future and killing all your livestock.

 

jBaker,
How big is too big? I don't know, we haven't reached the upper limit yet. Some get close ...
Look at the pictures of Blade Runner's tank and sump!

Otty, I was wondering, if the 1/10 rule is a general rule of thumb, or is it the lower limit? That is, should the sump be at least 1/10th the size of the display tank and the water flow at least 1/10th the contents per hour? I've seen some discussions in 3Reef of really huge water flows and big sumps.

 

depending on how deep your pocket is the ideal situation would be a seperate external pump for the tank, skimmer and the refugium. most overflows are rated around 600 gallons so a good pump would be a gen-x pcx-100 with a head pressure of 29' max flow 1590, line size restricts flow and should be taken into effect. ive had the same pump on my reef tank for over 3 years, if the flow is to much you could always turn it down, better to have to much than not enough.

instead of having the 55 be both refugium and sump, what about having it just be the sump. glasscages.com has cheap good acrylic aquariums you could use as a refugium with a seperate pump.

 

The larger the refugium the better. The more total water volume the more stable a system.

 

I set my fuge up with the 1/10th rule and I am already to the point of having to harvest algea out.
I have a 265g display and I am running a 30g tank with about 28g in it for the fuge. If you get the fuge too big then you will not enough nutrients to feed it.