building sump, need feedback on design

[Henry M]

I going to build a new sump/refuge out of an old 55 gal tank, and need some feedback on my design. this will be under a 200 tank w/external return and dual inlet. the inlet to the refuge section will be reduced w/the majority of flow going to the section w/the skimmer. thanks in advance and please critique and don't hold back.

Thanks

Henry

 

[Anonymous]

I think your plan looks like it would work great!

What kind of lighting are you planning for the fuge?

Louey

 

[Henry M]

I have an old 96watt pc smartlamp setup sitting around that I was going to use. What do u think?

 

[Anonymous]

Looks good. You might want to add 1 more baffle after you final spill over into return pump chamber. Place it around 1" off last baffle, and around 6" tall. This will cause any lingering bubbles to go up also any bubbles caused by the overflow action. I found this really helps my sumps.

 

[Anonymous]

96W pc should be fine. I have a 65W PC on my 20G refugium. With a 6" DSB, the marcos are fairly close to the light.

Louey

 

[Henry M]

cool thanks for the feedback. :lol:

 

[wickerj]

You've got your sections truned around. You don't want your refugium overflowing into your skimmer compartment.

Jeff

 

[Henry M]

after some discussion w/friends, they suggested not running skimmers at all. they have had their tanks w/o skimmers for about six months no problems. they said to expand the refuge and have plenty of calupera and that should do the trick. what do u think?

Henry

 

[Anonymous]

I personally like to use a skimmer. I don't think it would be a good idea to start a tank without one. You may be able to "ween" a mature, lightly loaded, tank off of a skimmer. But why?

Louey

 

[drbdc]

I'm setting my sump/refugium up and from what I've studied, you don't want to skim your water from the refugium.

 

[Anonymous]

You've got your sections truned around. You don't want your refugium overflowing into your skimmer compartment.

Jeff

Ditto that.. - Your skimmer will chop up / eat your pods.

And a skimmer really is a good idea... :wink:

 

[badgergoth]

If you want to run skimmerless, is there any way of fitting the skimmer you've got externally? That way you can use it in an emergency if your caulerpa growth crashes. You might also want to consider using chaetomorpha and red graciliria instead of caulerpa too. There's a discussion on it here:

http://reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t ... t=caulerpa

 

[Anonymous]

after some discussion w/friends, they suggested not running skimmers at all. they have had their tanks w/o skimmers for about six months no problems. they said to expand the refuge and have plenty of calupera and that should do the trick. what do u think?

Henry

I totally agree. I recommend caulpera profilera and especially chaeto.

Be sure to test and test and then test again. Make sure no floods occur when the power goes out and that normal operation resumes when power returns.

Have you thought about your overflow from the tank or is the tank drilled? With my 55g the syphon HOB overflow is the problem.

I also used an egg crate for an in tank refugium which has worked great and does not have the possible flooding problems. Just a thought.

 

[Anonymous]

You've got your sections truned around. You don't want your refugium overflowing into your skimmer compartment.

Jeff

Ditto that.. - Your skimmer will chop up / eat your pods.

And a skimmer really is a good idea... :wink:

double ditto. Besides, a refugium full of macros will capture a lot of bubbles from the skimmer.