Sump mod

[cniemira]

So I have a sump that I'm a little confused about. It's an acrylic 29 long for my 50 breeder and is already assembled. I got it with the tank, which isn't up yet. If I were designing a sump from scratch, I wouldn't do it exactly like this, but I'd do something very close.

Here's what it looks like now (this is a lousy sketch and not to scale):

29l sump.png

My concern is with the leftmost baffle on the fuge chamber, as well as the standoffs and egg crate. I don't think any of them are necessary, and I'm wondering why the designer put them there. I'm thinking I could either pack the fuge with LR and/or chaeto, but that's about it. The baffle makes adding sand messy.

Any thoughts on whether I should use it as-is, or try to modify it? As I said, it's acrylic, so I can't simply pop the extra baffle out. I'd have to cut it or drill it.