New design by Alpha

Howdy everyone, Do you have a canister filter laying around you dont use anymore- well heck, put it to work- here is how.

I have been working on a new sump/skimer/media chamber/return-refugium for sometime now- I think it's about to go into my 45 gallon set up and I will no longer need the HOB skimmer.

Equipment: Amircle sump @15 gallons, Fluval 304 acting as an over flow (and as a media reactor) ETSS red devil down draft skimmer with a RIO 2100 feed pump @700 GPH, and a RIO 2100 return pump @700 GPH.

The Fluval's intake is in the main display tank, and it's return takes water from the 45 gallon main display tank to the Amircle sump down below. I also use the Fluval as a media reactor with carbon and GFO with-in it's 3 media baskets, the Fluval 304 also acts as my over flow at about 300GPH. Then the skimmer does it's thing, and then over flow's into the return pump area at about 4 foot of head presure with a single retun elbow back to the tank- it looks like it will really work great.

So far, on the bench, it flows perfectly, and the nice thing- power goes out- no overflowing- none (make sure to use a one way check valve on the return pump side, and/or adjust the Fluval's intake height accordingly).

Not to mention, you can use the Fluval for many different things- a media reactor- a filter, or, both- I dont want to mess with filters- so media reactor only for me.

I am going for batteries and to get some RO water then I will post some pics after I finish setting it all up.

 

By the sounds of it you are saying that you will be using the canister filter to pump water down to the sump and a return pump to put the water back in the tank. If this is so I would rethink your plans. It's near impossible to get two pumps balanced enough to exactly swap the same amount of water between two places, so you will end up with either the sump or display overflowing. Also if you use a canister filter as an overflow the intake tube will be low enough in the water that during a power outage it will continue to siphon water into the sump.