Need comments on sump design. Pls help.

[Eng Keat]

Hi friends,

I am currently designing a sump (with refugium).
Need comments and advice to see if the design is
feasibile.

I am not good with drawing tools. Pls bear with me if I did
not include the exact details. Thanks



Thanks
Eng Keat 8O

 

[Anonymous]

Excellent design - I might add one more baffle before return pump to kill some bubbles before they get into the return.

 

[Anonymous]

I can't see anything wrong with it, other than to suggest to place the protein skimmer before the return pump so that it can work on the water as it pass thru the sump.

 

[DOGMAI]

I thought that

1. you want to skimm the water before the fuge.
2. you dont want to run the fuge water through the carbon and filters.
3. you want a little less water going to the fuge.

It seemed to me that in reading a lot here on RDO that you want the fuge to be something that is connected to the sump not a sump connected to a fuge. And that if the water gets skimmed after the fuge, all the critters from the fuge get skimmed. You are also trying to push all the fuge critters through two layers of filter and a layer of carbon. Just seems contradictory to what i have seen and read in the past on RDO.

 

[Anonymous]

You do have a few good points, DOGMAI.

1. you want to skimm the water before the fuge.

The rationale here is that the critter in the refug. will get "chopped" up by the skimmer (e.g., for non-airstone skimmer)

2. you dont want to run the fuge water through the carbon and filters.

... as you pointed out, the filter will catch the critters, and prevent them from reaching the main tank, defeating the purpose of the refug..

3. you want a little less water going to the fuge.

... less water will give it a better place for critters and *pods to live and reproduce.

I have to admit that I did not realized the complications immediately. However, sometimes, one have to make use of the available materials, and Keat's design is not something that is doomed to failure. Looks like he is trying to make use of an existing sump, instead of doing one from scratch, but I don't know...

At anyrate, you will be amazed at what can survive the trip thru a skimmer and pump, althought that is not a very good defense for purposely putting the skimmer and pump after the refug.

 

[Eng Keat]

Thanks for all the valuable advices

The reason why I design the refu before everything is
for "contigency", so that I can shut off the valve to the refu,
and at the same time the water circulation and skimming is
still working.

If I put the refu between the skimmer and the return pump,
then it will be a sequential flow from skimmer -> refu -> pump.
One question, is the above "contigency" plan necessary :?: :?:

I've read that if the refu "crash", harmful toxic waste will be
produce and send back to the main tank. Thus the design.

Eng Keat

 

[Anonymous]

It is possible for any subsystem to "crush" and ruin the rest of the setup. However, the safeguide you have only work well if you are monitoring it all the time. As soon as disaster strike, you only have a few hours to shut off the refug. which is very rarely possible if you need to work or study.

However, it does not means that it is useless. Maybe it will comes in handy when you happened to foretell the problem. Althought I doubt that most people will be able to take advantage of it, it does not mean that there is any specific reason to not implement it the way you wanted. Keep in mind that you still can move the skimmer before the pump, but with high recirculation rate, it should not make much difference in skimmer efficiency.

One thing that I would like to add is that you may want to add a "Y" to the left overflow, the one that drains into the refug. This is because you will be able to adjust the amount of flow going into the refug. and let the excess drains into the rest of the sump, just like the other overflow. This way, if one of you overflow is blocked, you still have the other one to handle some of the flow without flushing out the refug. Complication will be overflow noise, but you don't know until you get it setup.

 

[Tazzmacd]

So just to clarify this some what for me, I am planning a 24x24x96 tank. I was planning on putting in 2 over flows, one in each corner of the tank. One would feed a refu and the other the sump with a Protein skimmer and what ever else I had or needed to add. I was thinking about having a seperate pump for each tank, with these entering at different locations in the tank to give me some good circulation. So I should maybe thing about limiting the amount of water that goes to the refu by diverting some to the sump itself.

I was going to build my refu but I have an old 36 gallon tank that I was going to use for my sump. Does this sound fine or should I rethink this some more. Mind you I am still very very early in the design of this thing so I can always change. Better to change now instead of changing later

Oh the joys of planning, and I haven't even thought about the lights yet!!

Cheers!!

Pat

 

[Anonymous]

Hijacker alert! :wink: :lol:

(You may want to start a new thread)

36 gal sounds like a bit too small for your main tank, but it is not impossible. It is find as a refug., however. I feel it is doable, but you probably need to tell us more specific...

 

[Eng Keat]

Modified the design ... separate the sump into two ...
regu and skimmer compartment.

1) slower flow of water through the refu.
2) water pass the refu will not get skim
3) Refu "food" still gets to the main tank

:?: :?: is this OK :?: :?:

 

[Anonymous]

One thing that I would like to add is that you may want to add a "Y" to the left overflow, the one that drains into the refug.

Eng, what is your thought on my comment above?

You probably do not need the poly filter on the refug....

 

[Eng Keat]

That's the way I'll go

Thanks!!!

 

[Bleeding Blue]

Keat,

Wow, it seems that you have down your homework. I think the sump/fuge looks great. You might want to put a couple (I would use at least two) baffles so that you will not get any enfuriating micro bubbles pumped into you display tank. Also, I would make the carbon and polyfilter easily removeable. You may not want to run them more than a couple of days a month, and you don't want them to be a pain to get in and out.

Mike