Skimmer location

I had a conversation today with one of my LFS guys about my sump/fuge. Right now, my water comes from the DS, through some live rubble, into the fuge section that contains a DSB, some LR, and Chaeto, into a small section with a media pad, and then into the last chamber that my skimmer sits in, and then to the return pump. He was saying that this is an old set up, and because I don't' have a place for my skimmer before my fuge, that I should put it in the fuge, and just elevate the pump off the DSB. He was saying that with the skimmer at the end of the system, most likely any pods that are in there are being sucked up in the skimmer and into the collection cup, never making it to the DS.

Is he right? Should I either rearrange or build a new sump? Or is if fine how it is? Seems to me that unless the skimmer is at the very beginning of the sump before the fuge, it will be sucking up pods no matter what. The way my sump is designed, There is just no way for me to set it up like that.

Thoughts?

 

It's arguable whether or not ALL your pods are ending up in the skimmer, but he is right that having the skimmer before the fuge is better. If you can put the skimmer in the DSB chamber somehow without stirring sand and sucking it into the skimmer than I agree it would be better.

 

skimmer typicaly is after fuge, in theory it should be the "first" line in filtration cause its supposed to pull organics out before the break down. all the rest of the filtration methods help get rid of the stuff after it breaks down.


all that said, are you having some sort of a problem????? high nitrate??? chaning livestock??? why do you need more pods???

if its not broke, dont fix it.

 

K+ to that!

 

No problems now, but he was saying that corals will eat the pods, and without them, they won't grow as well. I'm also trying to get rid of a small microbubble problem, and he thought moving the skimmer would help.

 

I don't know how many corals eat pods, but moving your skimmer would definitely help with micro-bubbles. It would also be easier to tune your skimmer in a compartment where the water level doesn't change. It looks like you wouldn't be able to have macro algae in your fuge with the skimmer though, so I don't know if these benefits would out-weight taking out the macro.

 

i just ran through a couple diffrent things in my head, and it is kinda tough.

honestly i would say if you were trying to move your skimmer then the easiest thing to do would be make a new sump???

you could switch the fuge and skimmer sections, but then then the fuge would be real shallow, not a bad thing but not sure how a DSB would work.

thought about just switching the direction of flow through the sump, but then the fuge would be very shallow again.

 

So ideally, the flow would hit live rubble first, then skimmer, then fuge, then return pump? seems like that would be an easy build. Am I missing anything?

 

i am gonna make a sump this weekend out of a 29 gallon tank. if i forget to come back and update, PM me ill send you some pics.

 

yep, sounds good to me