Sump/Refugium

I am currently using an old 55 gallon tank for a sump, it has sand and live rock and cheato and sea lettuce, my skimmer, a gfo reactor, and a charcol reactor, it is feed by gravity through a sock. My question is I have nobaffles in there do I need them the flow from one end to the other seems slow, my skimmer does not put out much skimmate. This is comming off a 75 gallon reef tank.

 

this really needs a pic to go with it.

baffles give you more control. I do not use a sump so I'm not an expert here but I don't think you want your skimmer sitting on sand

 

+1 on what P said.

You should have baffles where the skimmer is to keep the water level steady.

 

I have an ATO unit to keep the water level consistent and my skimmer is not on sand any other reason why you need baffles

 

Baffles are to keep the water at a specific level in a specific area, such as for a skimmer. if that's taken care of, there's no reason to change your setup.

The skimmer may just need to be tuned.

Jeff


Text mangled by iPhone spell check...

 

I would say the baffles in your case would be needed to seperate your chambers. The issue is now that you might have too much flow going to your refugium, and maybe the way it is set up is creating more microbubbles than you want.
Other advantage to seperating is the control. You can keep your sand and macro all under control in one smaller area. The sandbed will eventually find its way ALL over your sump if you do not control it. You will end up fouling your pumps prematurely in this way IMHO.
Lastly, you will be able to isolate certain chambers if needed. Like when you have to trim out some macro - you can shut off the feed to your refugium to ensure you do not stir too much detritus back into the tank or sand into your pumps (more the latter as some detritus in the DT is ok periodically IMO). Also, you can dose phyto in your fuge by isolating it.

 

ok and what is the best way to install baffles in to a 55 gallon tank to make it a sump?

 

http://www.3reef.com/forums/reef-aquarium-articles-how-tos/all-about-sumps-filters-fuges-79852.html


that is all the info you'll ever need.

 

Great Link thanks