sump plans - comments welcome

[Fermat]

It's that time of year again... Upgrade time!

I'm planning on adding a sump with refugium for my 35 gallon. I am putting it directly on the other side of the wall into a powder room, so I have some flexibility in size. Here is my first design:

Sump: 30 x 12 1/2 x 17 (27.7g)
Baffles: 4

Baffles:
at 6 inch, 13 inch tall
at 7 inch, 13 inch tall, raised 1 inch
at 8 inch, 13 inch tall
at 18 inch, 15 inch tall with 1 inch teeth.

These partition the sump into intake (6 x 12.5 x 13, 4.2g), return (10 x 12.5 x 13, 7.1g), refugium (12 x 12.5 x 14, 9.1g). I will need about 5 feet of tubing to/from the sump. Sump will operate at 20g max, and I hope to get 200 to 250 gph.

For additional equipment I am considering:

Mag 5 Pump
AquaC Urchin Skimmer
Amiracle Overflow Box (600 gph, 1" U, 1" drain)
Clear 1" Tubing
Modular tubing to return water at surface all along 1 edge of tank.

Any and all comments or suggestions welcome before I start making purchases! I always get great feedback here.

Thanks!

[WaterKeeper]

Sound fine here Fermat.

[Shagsbeard]

I think you're going overboard on the return tubing, but that's up to you. At 250g/h, you're not going to get "flow" out of the returns, so modular tubing really loses it usefulness.

I'd also consider matching more closely the 600gph drain with your 250gph return. You're sucking a lot of air, which can be noisy, to make up the difference. I'd up the return pump to at lease 500gph.

Clear tubing promotes algae growth... go for opaque.

When doing your plumbing, be sure to support the full weight of the pipes (with water) with brackets... not with your bulkheads or the side of your tank.

[Fermat]

Originally posted by Shagsbeard
I think you're going overboard on the return tubing, but that's up to you. At 250g/h, you're not going to get "flow" out of the returns, so modular tubing really loses it usefulness.

I'd also consider matching more closely the 600gph drain with your 250gph return. You're sucking a lot of air, which can be noisy, to make up the difference. I'd up the return pump to at lease 500gph.

Clear tubing promotes algae growth... go for opaque.

When doing your plumbing, be sure to support the full weight of the pipes (with water) with brackets... not with your bulkheads or the side of your tank.

You're right about the modular tubing. Perhaps just split and return in two places? Good to keep at the surface for surface agitation?

I had heard to keep the flow through the sump at 3x to 5x the total water volume of the display tank (melev). That puts me at no more than 175 gph. I think I read somewhere that if I use 3/4" tubing it will limit me to 300gph from the overflow box. Would that suck less air?

I'll be sure to take your advice on supporting the pipes. Thanks.

[Fermat]

Any comments from the evening crowd?

[kypatriot]

I made a sump/refugium from a 29g glass tank for my 40g breeder. To get more volume and make it simpler, I combined the refugium and return section by separating the 2 with egg-crate.

I used a piece of acrylic about 4 inches tall on the bottom (to hold in sand) with eggcrate glued to the top of that.

It's been up for about a year now and it's worked well.

[poppin_fresh]

I think you will be unhappy if you run 600gph through your sump. Not only are you going to give the filtration less time to work, but you may end up with microbubble problems.

I really dont think that the noise level will be all that different. You aren't sucking the water out of the tank, it is draining out. I cant say that I noticed any difference (noise wise)when I dropped my return rate from 650gph to about 300. I did notice a huge improvement in skimmer performance though!

[Fermat]

Yeah, from what I've read so far those are the reasons for keeping the flow below 5x volume. Any thoughts on me using a 3/4" tube?