Sump Design

[Kronk]

Well building my tank is a long way off but i cant help but make some designs for it. This is the sump i am going to use. Can anyone see anything wrong with the design? or any ways to improve it. It will be about 32Long 16Wide 16Deep.

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k266/Kronk_01/SumpDesignLarge.jpg

Thanks,
Ken

[BMW Rider]

Two things.

1. The narrowness of the baffles might cause higher waterflow rates which might pull bubbles right past. Hard to say for sure though, it might be just fine too.

2. I'd go with one pump, a slightly larger one for the return and tee off it with a ball valve to feed the refugium. You can adjust the flow to the refugium to tune the amount of return flow to the tank that way.

[dsaundry]

. I'd go with one pump, a slightly larger one for the return and tee off it with a ball valve to feed the refugium. You can adjust the flow to the refugium to tune the amount of return flow to the tank that way.


Agree with that.

[dsaundry]

One more thing, Have you calculated what happens in case of a power failure??

[phillybean]

I would also go with one pump and try to make the baffles wider if possible.

[Okguy]

The water should go over the last baffle and into the return chamber to keep any remaining air bubbles near the surface. I also encourage people to make the return chamber as large as possible as this is the chamber where you'll see the effects of daily evaporation...

[Kronk]

The Baffles will be 4" wide bumping them up to 6" would help i guess? The one pump with T is a good idea. I wonder if putting a T that low to the pump would cause the pressue to lower a lot? I am going to have an autotopoff so i am not too worried about evaporation. For a 1000GPH pump what size would you reccommend for a return chamber.

[sharuq1]

Have you checked out Melev's designs? Just thought it might be able to give you a few ideas.

http://www.melevsreef.com/allmysumps.html
http://www.melevsreef.com/55g/55g_sump.html
diy from a 20g:
http://www.melevsreef.com/acrylics/sumps/glass/index.html

[PoonTang]

With a sump and return pump of that size you are probally going to want to divide it into 1/3 sections for each chamber which will give you about 7 gallons per section. Also go with 1 pump and a t to the fuge or do a t off of your overflow into your fuge. Make sure that your first baffle from the skimmer chamber has the water going under it and not over, you will have way less issues.