What do you think of my simple sump design?

So I have finaly finished building my stand and my hood. My 40 Gallon breeder tank is mounting and just awaiting water, live rock, and sand. I am makeing a DIY sump and refuge. I have 2 options. Right now I have a 29G tank I can use for my sump and refuge. Or I can use a 20G tank for the sump and a 5.5G for the refuge. Hear is the design I am looking at, but being my first sump I don't know if this will actually work. Also I have a Fluval 305 canister filter. Can I use the Fluval as the return pump. It could pump the water from the sump to the tank and even filter it a little more. So what do you gauys think?

 

I would recommend a seperate pump or tee off the main to supply the fuge.....your current set up will create to much flow ( volume ) in the fuge....if i remember right 30-50 gallons and hour is the recommended flow for a fuge.

I have a similar set up .....90 gallon DT...to a 30 gallion fuge ....to a 20 gallon sump.....I used a tee off the the return from the DT to feed the fuge and gravity flow back into the sump .....some will say that you don't want water direct from the DT as it can cause the fuge to build up from debris from the DT ......a small pump from the sump to feed the fuge will also provide circulation in the fuge...

just my two cents

 

You can put quite a bit of flow in a fuge and they will still work well. I say go with what ever setup gives you the larger fuge. What I would do is use the 29 gallon tank. Put a single solid baffle on the skimmer section to keep the water level constant. Then on the other end have a short solid baffle (if you want sand in your fuge), with egg crate on top of it, or just an egg crate baffle to keep the chaeto out of the return pump. The return section only needs to be as large as the pump since evap will come out of both the fuge and return sections. Plus this makes the fuge a lot larger. Doing this, I would say you could do 15+ gallons for the fuge in your 29 gallon sump.

Kim