new sump design idea

[chris_b]

Hey all!

long time reader 1st time poster here so hello! been in the hobby for 2 or 3 years now. Had a 72g set up for a while and currently a 14.

Just got moved into a new house and moved my old 72 gallon bow front over yesterday so I am going to set it up again. I want a much bigger sump this time though so thats step 1. I am going with a 29 gallon and it has to go in through the top due to size so I have to have it in before I put the tank up.

I had a 10 gallon sump and it has a side chamber along the whole back 1/2 of the tank for a low flow fuge and I really liked that idea of a slow flow fuge area but didn't like the thin chambers due to it being separated by left and right sides. The other issue i has was the return chamber was too small and i found myself having to top off the tank 2x a day. I may set up an autotopoff at some point but not now.

I started looking into sump designs with a low flow chamber and i fond most were like this. with a left intake right fuge and center return. But many people didnt like this because you needed a 2nd set of bubble trap baffles and that takes too much space or deal with the bubbles. other than that no real complaints.
http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd279/NATIVEVAMAN/Fuge2.jpg


So i was thinking about something along these lines. (not to scale yet)
http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h44/scacs/fuge.jpg

the only issue i could see with this is the micro orgs have to go through the intake area and all the high flow area to get back to the tank. anyone see any issues with this or any other issues with the design? I may or may not leave room for a skimmer but at this time I don't plan to run one(thats a diff discussion).

all this vs a standard basic layout
http://www.philbywhizz.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/sump-09.jpg


Also, I went from a wet dry to a fuge for a short time before I had to take the tank down so i don't have a lot of experience with this type of set up. What filter media do i need to run with a fuge setup. I used to have carbon, ammonia, sponge, and then the bioballs. I think when i set the fuge up I only had a carbon filter. Whats else needed with a fuge setup out side of the cheato, LR, and sand?

[tkeracer619]

Its best not to ball valve the drain. If a snail gets in there and it can't make it through you just got set up for a disaster. It is best to Tee off your return line and feed the fuge with water from your return pump.

You should be running a skimmer. If there is no room I would choose a skimmer over a fuge any day of the week.

GFO and Carbon should be used in reactors. This will help against phosphates and keep the water "fresher"

[iwishtofish]

The picture below includes a bit more hardware than is relevant to your original question, but should suffice to illustrate my point.

Why not avoid having the drain line T off and feed your refugium? If you avoid that, maybe you can also avoid having detritus coming down from your display tank overflow settling in your refugium. In my illustration, the hope is that the bubble traps will also trap detritus (where it can be siphoned out) prior to its making it to my return pump. The return pump (hopefully cleaner water) will also feed my reactors and the refugium/frag area.

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb113/bjdoyle64/Game-plan4a.jpg

[chris_b]

Aaaah both of those are great points for not Teeing off the drain line... Thanks!

[spartyblaze]

I ran an almost exact system as this baffle for about a year on a 55g and it worked pretty well.

Two challenges I ran into:

1. Keeping my DSB in the DSB Partition and not interfering with my return pump.
2. Challenge mounting reactors while allowing access to sump for maintenance - I tried with Phosban 150's for a bit, without success

It led me to breaking down the whole system and using a Rubbermaid, but a friend of mine got into reefing and is still using the sump with success on his 40.

Also, I second the Skimmer - I assumed you were running an external?

Good luck!