Finished my DIY Sump/Refugium. Need some feedback

[InfernoST]

Hi Guys
I've decided to install a sump/refugium for my 120 and just finished building it and would like your opinions on where it could be improved if needed. I used a 30 gallon tank because it is the only thing that will fit in the stand, the left compartment is the refugium, the middle is the return with a media shelf and the right side is the feed with enough room for an in sump skimmer. Here are two pics let me know what you all think.

 

[Reefers Paradise]

water level is gonna be pretty high

 

[albano]

water level is gonna be pretty high

+1... not alot of room for backflow in case of power outage! otherwise, very nice job...keep pics...last time you'll ever see it so nice and clean!

 

[InfernoST]

water level is gonna be pretty high

I calculated for 9 gallons of backflow which is almost 2 inches of loss in the DT, it should work out if I plumb the tank properly. I'll keep my shop vac handy when I'm ready to test it.

 

[InfernoST]

+1... not alot of room for backflow in case of power outage! otherwise, very nice job...keep pics...last time you'll ever see it so nice and clean!

Thanks Albano. Unfortunately I had to get as much out of my 30 gallons as possible won and if all works out nothing should flood, but thats not my luck, I'll get the the plumbing right on the 3rd or 4th shot. Did you finish your build yet?

 

[NL146]

I've no experience but I've been researching DIY sumps and your design seems to be right on the money (except for the height of the baffles). How did you apply the silicone with the baffles so close? Looks like less than an inch in places. Pretty good! How long did this take?

 

[KathyC]

Looks very nice. Excellent job on the silicone!

My sump in my 120 is a 33 long and is done almost the same way (tho my last compartment has slightly lower baffles, but only by an inch or two).

As long as you keep the return lines close to the surface of the water (that is where most of your backflow in a power outage will come from) you should be fine.
Try to resist the impluse to run a huge amunt of flow through your sump. The high amount of flow in your DT should be confined to the DT, the rest is a waste of energy (in your sump area).

You might want to consider a filter sock holder since your drain is going to be dumping a fair amount of water into the area you want to use as a fuge (?). Are you putting any sand in the fuge area?

 

[KathyC]

very nice job...keep pics...last time you'll ever see it so nice and clean!

lol :biglaugh:

 

[InfernoST]

Looks very nice. Excellent job on the silicone!

My sump in my 120 is a 33 long and is done almost the same way (tho my last compartment has slightly lower baffles, but only by an inch or two).

As long as you keep the return lines close to the surface of the water (that is where most of your backflow in a power outage will come from) you should be fine.
Try to resist the impluse to run a huge amunt of flow through your sump. The high amount of flow in your DT should be confined to the DT, the rest is a waste of energy (in your sump area).

You might want to consider a filter sock holder since your drain is going to be dumping a fair amount of water into the area you want to use as a fuge (?). Are you putting any sand in the fuge area?

Thanx. I'm planning on using a Quite One 2200 pump which should give me about 375gph at 4.5' HH. I'm going to put about 5" of sand, one of my tank heaters and a light in the fuge with some chaeto and set the lighting opposite that of the DT. I'm going to put a sock on each side as well.

 

[InfernoST]

I've no experience but I've been researching DIY sumps and your design seems to be right on the money (except for the height of the baffles). How did you apply the silicone with the baffles so close? Looks like less than an inch in places. Pretty good! How long did this take?

I set the baffles/bubble traps to be about 1/2" apart (The center baffle on each side is 1 1/2 inches above the bottom of the tank) with the exception of the media tray in the return chamber. The baffle for the skimmer section is 10 inches tall because most in sump skimmers require anywhere between 8-10 inches of water depth the operate properly. I went with 9 inches for the return side baffles because this is what made me feel comfortable so I sacrificed some back flow volume from the DT (I plan on adding ATO unit as well) and the fuge baffle is 14" high which gives me a good amount of volume for the sand, chaeto and one of my tank heaters. I took me a total of three days from start to finish, two of the those calculating the volume of back flow I wanted the sump/fuge to handle from the DT in case of a power failure then designing the sump baffle locations and getting all of the materials together and one entire day cutting the baffles to the sizes I needed and siliconing them in place.
This is my first attempt at building one and am keeping my fingers x-ed that it doesn't leak and works as planned.

 

[darkdrako]

Something else to consider is that your skimmer has a certain amount of water in suspension. For example, when I do not have my skimmer running in my sump, it will not run my return pump (also a QO2200) dry. When I turn on the skimmer it will hold additional water to run and will then cause the return pump to start spitting out bubbles into my display tank if I do not add more water. This extra water, in turn, will make my current sump/refuge setup overflow a little if the power went out.

 

[sharkbait69]

looks real nice. The silicon job looks fantastic. I agree with the baffle height though. Depending on your returns, you could get away with a siphon break. that would help stop water being siphoned back onto the sump also. If you do use a siphon breaks drill a couple of holes incase one cruds up or a snail happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Other wise, good job. Oh and yeah, take a lot of pics, all that nice work will be snotted up in no time.

 

[Yen]

Very neat job!!!
Which one is your fuge? If the one on the left is for the water coming down from the tank, you'll be ok because the operating water level is only 1/3 of the height, you'd have plenty of room for back flow. But it might be an issue selecting the skimmer that fits in that tight space.

If the fuge is on the left, it's good because you have almost the max height possible for your fuge. But you don't need the additional baffles on that side. There'll be no bubbles because the flow to the fuge should be slow. I would try to use the egg crate to create some sort of screening to prevent the algea from flowing to the return section.

Yen

 

[InfernoST]

Something else to consider is that your skimmer has a certain amount of water in suspension. For example, when I do not have my skimmer running in my sump, it will not run my return pump (also a QO2200) dry. When I turn on the skimmer it will hold additional water to run and will then cause the return pump to start spitting out bubbles into my display tank if I do not add more water. This extra water, in turn, will make my current sump/refuge setup overflow a little if the power went out.

Thanks, I'll look out for that when I get my in sump skimmer, right now I'm using a RO BH-800s HOB which works great but is a bit noisy and a PIA to drain and clean because of my canopy. I'm hoping the wifey will get me the in sump version for X-mas.

 

[InfernoST]

looks real nice. The silicon job looks fantastic. I agree with the baffle height though. Depending on your returns, you could get away with a siphon break. that would help stop water being siphoned back onto the sump also. If you do use a siphon breaks drill a couple of holes incase one cruds up or a snail happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Other wise, good job. Oh and yeah, take a lot of pics, all that nice work will be snotted up in no time.

I was planning on using a siphon break but didn't think about the possibility of my snails clogging the hole (a few more holes it is), thanks for the heads up and the kudos. I'll take a couple more pics before I put her online.

 

[InfernoST]

Very neat job!!!
Which one is your fuge? If the one on the left is for the water coming down from the tank, you'll be ok because the operating water level is only 1/3 of the height, you'd have plenty of room for back flow. But it might be an issue selecting the skimmer that fits in that tight space.

If the fuge is on the left, it's good because you have almost the max height possible for your fuge. But you don't need the additional baffles on that side. There'll be no bubbles because the flow to the fuge should be slow. I would try to use the egg crate to create some sort of screening to prevent the algea from flowing to the return section.

Yen

Thanks, I tried, I hate working with silicone. The fuge is on the left side, I installed the additional baffles because I wanted to reduce the chance of bubbles and noise. The main intake is on the right and the size of the chamber is 11 3/4" x 10" this is where I plan on sticking the skimmer, worse case scenario would be buying an external unit but I looked up the dimensions of an Reef Octopus unit rated for 160 gallons that should fit with some room to spare. I have some egg crate left over, I'll come up with something to keep the algae in it's place.

 

[InfernoST]

It holds water and doesn't leak

Here are a few pics of it filled with water. Thank god, all chambers are water tight. I know it's not to exciting but it sure did amuse me with all of the different water levels. I'm hoping to have it up and running by the weekend, i need to get to lowes for some PVC.

 

[Yen]

Awesome!

Maybe you've already planned to do so, but just in case, instead of the nilon tube, use threaded pvc for the return pump. Once everything is installed under the cabinet, it'll be tight, so with threaded pvc, it'll much easier if you ever need to replace the pump, or modify plump, etc.

Yen

 

[InfernoST]

Awesome!

Maybe you've already planned to do so, but just in case, instead of the nilon tube, use threaded pvc for the return pump. Once everything is installed under the cabinet, it'll be tight, so with threaded pvc, it'll much easier if you ever need to replace the pump, or modify plump, etc.

Yen

Thanks Yen. One thing, can you use a ridgid pipe threader to thread PVC or is there a special tool? I have threaders from 1/2 inch to 2.5 inches but they are for galvanized and aluminum pipe.

 

[fdavila514]

Hey, nice job! I think. But pretty sure they are prob different sizes . Chec outer diameter and wall thickness to see if they match. GOOD LUCK.