Shallow Sump Design

I have been looking over melevsreef for a while now and almost all of this sumps are 16 inches in height and he is always saying he recomened leaving 10 inches for work room... that is all fine and good but now that I am starting on my project to make a custom sump/refugium for my 75 gal I have come across an issue and so far have not seen others (maybe I missed it?) but the opening demintions in the back of my aquarium are 40.25 long by 10.34 deep and 17.75 tall now I can make it a little deeper by making a platform for it to come out on which would increase it to 13.25 deep but how tall should it be I am not sure what is a same amount of working room that will allow me to still but a skimmer and a light in the sump area?

I plan on doing a Intake Skimmer to Return Zone to Intake Refugium.

Thanks for any help,
Scott

 

When installing a sump it goes underneath the display tank (typically) so your limitations on what size sump you can use are limited to the dimensions inside your stand.

For instance the inside of my stand measures 12.5 inches from front to back by 26 inches tall by 50 inches long. Therefore using your 10 inch rule to work in the sump I could have a sump that is 16 inches tall.

What really gets me is the 12.5 inches from front to back that I have, It limits me to a 25-45 gallon long tank to use as my sump.

 

See if I were to use that 10 inch rule that I have seen before it would make me have to have a 8 in tall sump and that would be pusing it for the rule of ten.

Does anyone know if there has been such a set up? on such a large tank or should I just put the tank behind the aquairum?