Refugium and sump design

wanted to get some advice on a refugium and sump i hope to add next weekend. I am going to use 2 10 gallon tanks under a 55 gallon. the first section of the sump is to keep the drain pipe submerged. the remaining sump tank is even divided into a skimmer section and return section. At first i am going to relocate my HOB remora skimmer onto the back of the sump, i wanted to leave room to upgrade later. The feed for the fuge will be T-ed from the overflow box (u hose siphon type) and will have a valve to control flow.

Will the drain for the fuge going in front of the bubble trap prevent any transfer of pods and such into the DT?

Any problems seen?

 

design looks fine and should not stop the pods from getting to the tank.

 

also would there be any advantage/disadvantage to feed the fuge from the pump line going into the DT rather then the drain?

 

your gonna want to add a ball valve like in this picture
to create back pressure other wise the water wont go down the T to the fuge
this way you can also control how much goes to the fuge and how much goes to the sump

 

That's exactly what I did for mine. It works great.

The only eason to raise the fuge is to avoid drilling a hole in the sump tank. Otherwise you can plumb straight across. Water will flow out into the sump since new water is flowing in.

 

just picked up the tanks to make the sump/fuge. i wanted to make sure the glass wasn't tempered although i dint see why any 10 gallon tank would be. No one at pet smart knew for sure. i found out the hard way, clipped the edge of my stand while test fitting the tanks under my stand. cracked one of the tanks. Good news though it didn't shatter so its not tempered i have a practice tank to drill on now too.

if i put the tanks level one 1 inch pipe going back into the sump from the fuge should be enough for flow right??

 

I dont see why it wouldnt. I have 2 1" bulkheads tieing my sumps together on my 120 and around 1000 GPH flowing through it. your flow will be based on your pump. A 1" if im not mistaken can flow around 600 GPH. some one correct me if im wrong

Sorry about you busting your tank. Like you said the upside is a practice tank LOL

 

ok, so i modified the design based on suggestions and some further research this weekend

putting the fuge at the same level as the sump sounded good cause its easier plus i wont have to allow for overflow from the fuge in the sump in case of a power outage.

added the valve on the drain to divert flow to the fuge. and added the return loop to fine tune the return flow back into the tank

added a small compartment to drain the fuge before the bubble trap but not into the skimmer compartment

baffle size is not set in stone yet still trying to get it down

thanks for the advice so far. let me know what you think

 

If I was doing it I would add 1 more pipe from the fuge to the sump just a little bit higher then the 1st one. That way if anything blockes the first pipe the water will then flow threw the second pipe. Fuges can get packed with growth.

Maybe overkill but easy to do now.

 

a second pipe does sound like a good idea, i want to keep the volume as high as possible so maybe one on each side at the same elevation rather then one below/above. you do bring up a good question though. i wonder how i should go about keeping growth out of the overflow pipes. maybe a "false wall" type baffle from top to bottom about an inch away from the left edge of the fuge with holes drilled in it to keep growth away from the drain.