Plumbing Problems

[sleeman]

I have a 75 gal with 33 gal sump/refuge. About 25 gals for the sump. 1.5" durso standpipe into 1.5" plumbing into sump. There is a T to a 3/4" dropping into the refuge. The 1.5" then continues and drops into the sump area. I am running a mag 18 into a 1" pipe to a 1" manifold with three soon to be four returns at 1/2". I have got the durso under control, however I have a ton of air going into the sump. I am getting a lot of microbubles in the return to the main tank. I know that I could turn down the flow or put a couple of dividers in the sump, but would like to save these as a last resort. Is there anything else I can do to help eliminate the bubbles. Would up sizing to 2" above the bulhead help eliminate air or would it draw more in? Any other styly of standpipe I could try. Link to pic of sump. Couln't figure out how to paste the pic in.
http://www.canreef.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=273
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated,

Cheers,

Al

[BCOrchidGuy]

Correct me if I'm wrong but it looks like the bubbles are coming from the down pipe that doesn't go into the reservoir on the sump. If that's the case I think if you just use a peice of sponge over that down tube and hold it in place with the elastic you'd probably be fine. Do you have a sponge over the intake of your pump?

Doug

[sleeman]

I am getting bubbles in both the sump and refuge. I have about 100- 200 gph going into the refuge and the rest goes straight into the sump. Is it normal for the overflow to bring this much air down with it? I have never had a sump before. No foam over the pump. Just the plastic that it came with. Can you buy faom to go over the plastic or do you just wrap some around it?

Cheers,

Al

[BCOrchidGuy]

I think it's normal, I used to have all my return come down through a floss filter basket to catch any large stuff, then go into the resevoir, then overlflow and go down through a aquaclear 500 sponge then it would be in the sump area.
This time around I'm building a 10 gallon tank as the prefilter etc and putting bio balls etc in there, then it will go down to the reservoir and again through the aquaclear 500 sponge and into the sump.

Doug