Custom Sump Mod Question

[chrishet]

Hi everyone. I am finally getting around to setting up a tank build from a few years back, and as such I have had time to rethink a few ideas. I had this sump custom made with the help of MyReefCreations. Its a beautiful sump and is solid as a rock! My challenge is in the design. When I designed this sump biopellets were all the rage and my thought was to have a recirculating reactor however after thinking about it for a while I thought, why not have a recirculating chamber in my sump, hence this design.

Moving forward to today, I am not going to use biopellets but instead use this as a true refugium. I decided to add small overflow box to this section to keep algae from creeping into the skimmer section. I have this sump installed and am testing it before cycling my tank. I am having a few issues, such as noise from the fuge overflow. To mitigate this I had to install a gate valve on the exit pipe, which works but it takes up space.

Here is a pic:

So now I am thinking I should do away with the overflow box and just let the flow go over a wall to the skimmer section. Such as this...

So what do you all think? Keep it as is? Modify it per above? Or other ideas?

Thanks in advance!!!!

 

[mcgyvr]

water falling through the slot is going to make noise/bubbles too.. which could be mitigated with a ramp on the outlet of the slot but that takes up space too..
Lesser of 2 evils

 

[chrishet]

makes sense. Interesting, I just added a 3/4 pipe adapter to the end of the exit pipe instead of the gate valve and it works great...I can adjust the flow with the manifold and it is completely silent.

 

[mcgyvr]

Yes overflow noise is mostly related to having too high of a flowrate through it...slow the flow and lessen the noise as the water sticks to the sides of the pipe vs sucking air down or being overly turbulent