Sump going well!

[Luke.Fraizer]

My project was to decide on a skimmer and I got the Aquamedic Turbo flower good up to 125 gallons! Great White here in Fort Collins said it would do quite nicely! I looked up a couple of plans and decided to go with a setup that has the refugium on the opposite side of the tank of the inlet instead of next to it for space reasons. It is a lot like http://www.reefbuilders.com/forums/diy-projects/8988-diy-refugium-questions-pics.html that one. I was wondering though how much space should I leave for the pump to go back up in the center? Is there any way that it would "run out" of water? It or do I not need to worry cause it should flow fine? the pump itself is only about 5 in wide and 7 long. If I were to leave about double the space would it be ok or could I go less to have more space on the other side for the refugium?

Luke

 

[Haulin Oates]

If I'm understanding your post correctly, your wondering if your return pump will pump too fast? Your limiting factor in most tank/sump setups is the overflow. You can put a ball valve on the return line to limit your return pump if you plan on copying the design of the link you posted.

 

[Haulin Oates]

Also, you will see the level of water in the pump area go down slowly due to evaporation. I'd plumb an ATO to this area to counteract that.

 

[Luke.Fraizer]

I guess my question is will the overflow supply as fast at it will pump? Or is there a volume I need to achieve in order for it to not "run out". Does that make any more since?

 

[Haulin Oates]

What kind of overflow is it? If it can't drain as fast as your pump is pumping, then yes, the water level will drop and you will overfill your display tank. But you can put a ball valve on the output of the pump to dial it back and match your overflow capacity. I personally dont like to do this, but there are several on this site that have done it successfully. Once dialed in the only change to your water level will be with evaporation and topping off.

 

[Craigar]

Consider power outages your sump needs to hold water From display cause I will siphon out

 

[Luke.Fraizer]

This is where I got to today! Turning out better than I thought. The 1 1/2 pipe is way bigger than I was expecting! Turing into a living room mess!

 

[dvenson]

how many gallons per hour is the pump and what is the drain diameter the drain is where your focus should be. If the pump is pushing more water into the tank than it can drain back down to the sump the tank will overflow and the sump may run dry. there is a drain calculator on reef central that can help determine the flow rate of a given pipe. http://www.reefcentral.com/calc/drain.php



If i was going to utilize the sump design you linked i would plumb my return pump up and use a T over to the fuge with a ball valve to regulate the flow of the fuge. i would not put a valve on the drain only on the return pump.

 

[Luke.Fraizer]

So the drain line is 1 1/2 in and the return line is 3/4. I actually used that exact link to make sure and than made it bigger. From what I have seen is that the valve makes it so that you can shut it all down to do maintenance. The pump does about 690 gph. About the right size for 10x an hour re circulation of the tank. The T is exactly what I did. I didn't like that all the stuff from the tank was going into the fuge. The return has a valve going to the main tank and going to the refug. I tweaked it a bit to make it a little better. I went to HD and got all the stuff other than the actual pipe 2 days ago cause I don't have a truck to put it in. Honda civic and a Galant VR4... does not fit so well.... Tomorrow is the day I'm going to try and drill the tank. Anyone in the fort collins area have 2 hole bits I could possible use/ help me out? I'll do some home brew and brats if anyone would like to come.

 

[Luke.Fraizer]

The sump is great but now I have the issue that I can no longer use the show tank. So I went and got a 75g today. Problem averted.