Sump Design

I have a 90 gallon display tank with a AquaC Remora Pro skimmer currently. I want to add a sump/refugium and will be able to fit either a 30 or 38 gallon and want to keep using this skimmer since I already have it. This is the design I want to use so please let me know the pro's and con's to this design or any suggestions to make it better.

 

I would raise the 4th baffle higher because thats where your going to lose water from evaporation.

also, aren't aquaCpros very tall? I don't think thats going to hang on your short sump.

 

Nice design, but I have a small suggestion. When I built my sump, I did it so that the water from the intake is split into 2 tubes, each controlled by a ball valve. The first tube goes to the skimmer chamber and the other goes to the fuge, which is at the far end of the sump. In that way, you can independently control the flow into the fuge without reducing the total flow into your sump. The middle chamber is the return/pump chamber. For a reference, you can go to www.melevsreef.com design F.

 

mattheuw1 - The AquaC measures 16" from the bottom to the lip that hangs over the tank so I think as long as the tank is taller than that it should be fine. Would raising the 4th baffle to the height of the 1st one be sufficient?

JJK - Thats a good thought but i'm still a little unsure what the benefit of plumbing it like that is. Is it just to control the flow?

 

That would probably suffice. You just don't want to be doing top offs every day with that little return chamber, that's my problem. You just have to make sure the sump chambers are not filled up with water so high that they can't handle the extra water in an outage. I am guessing that last baffle is supposed to prevent the water cascading down and creating bubbles for your return pump to suck into the display. I do not have that extra baffle on my return chamber and I do not have that issue.

 

Yeah, just for the flow. See, here's the thing. You want good flow in your sump and return line. But you want low flow in your fuge. If everything that drains from your DT into your sump must travel through your fuge before it gets to the return pump, that means that, defacto, your fuge will have high flow. With my design you can still have high flow to the sump but low flow to the fuge. Bottom line, there's nothing wrong with your design (though I would raise the 4th baffle, as Matthew says) but I just think that my suggestion has that added advantage.

 

JJK - That makes sense and I think I will look into doing it that way. Do you have a drilled tank or are you using a hang on overflow, if so which one? What return pump are you using?

 

I use a drilled tank with a 1.5" drain and a 1" return. The sump is a 30g long, roughly divided into thirds. I use a Quiet One 6000 return pump with a ball valve controlling the output. I really like the pump because it truly is very quiet.

 

+1 for the return in the middle. I also made my sump with too small of a return section and have to top off more than I would like. My advice is to make it the size you want and then maybe steal a little from the other two sections to make it a little bigger lol.

Also I know it seems like wasted space but if you can make the baffles wide enough to be able to get in to clean between them, its a big help.

Jake

 

I agree with the return pump in middle chamber. The fuge needs to have low flow so it needs to be on one end by itself. If you have a 100g tank then 10gph should go across the fuge... just a good rule of thumb.