Design A or Design B?

[mooch1982]

Hey guys,

I am currently building custom sump for a 40 gallon set up. I will using a rather large skimmer, ASM G2 for this set-up meaning I needed a rather large skimmer area. I decided to skip a fuge for now, and go with a design that has a large skimmer area, 4 baffles, and a return. 4 Baffles will hopefully rid of all bubbles. Anyhow, there are two designs I am thinking and need your opinions.

Design A

Has water trickle over the top, and then go through baffles. Not sure how effective this would be as bubbles rise to the top.

Design B

Has water enter from the bottom. Again, not sure, but my feeling is this may be more effective, as bubbles rise. This would allow for fewer bubbles to go through the baffles.

Spacing between all baffles is 1 inch.

Opinions?

 

[Carriegiesler]

I would say Design B sounds and from my visualization would be the best at reducing the bubbles.

If there is a way to keep the fuge try to as it provides you tank with some many benifits.

 

[mooch1982]

Unfortunately,

If i want to incorporate my skimmer, I need a large skimmer area, pretty much getting rid of a fuge.

By the way, attached a diagram of my sump designs.

 

[Carriegiesler]

I completly missed the attachment. After see the drawings I still think B. Are you planning on running a filter sock? I would suggest it as getting the gunk that collect the baffles out can be difficult.

Also make sure you have enough room in your sump to allow for the water to drain when and iff your pumps are kicked off.

From the bottom of your drain to the top of your tank (inches) multiplied by the L, W of your tank will give you the volume of water that will drain.
Then do the same for your sump. Top of your baffle(water level) to top of sump, multiply by L,W to get volume available for drainage. This will insure you dont have a flood.

 

[Gold Stripe]

(B) is "under/over/under". You dont really need the last "over". This is how my sump is set up and it works very well. You will see a lot the opposite way (A) but when I tried it that way i was not impressed with the performance.

 

[NanoReefWanabe]

i really dont think there is any difference in how you place the baffles, as you said bubbles will rise which means it will also be difficult for them to sink...being if your first baffle is over, the bubbles will have a hard time going down to get under the next, and if they do when they come back up they should escape before going over the weir to the return...

to each their own it is more personal preference though...

your flow through the sump is going to have a huge impact on the bubbles passing through the the baffles as well...if it is flowing too fast the bubbles will get through no matter what...

as for getting stuff out between baffles...if you are having this problem then your flow is too slow, and it is easy to get the gunk out of anywhere in the sump using a maxjet pump with a vinyl hose attached to both the input and the output, use the input hose as your vacuum and the out put to your WC bucket...use a MJ400 and a valve on the output to control the flow.

 

[mooch1982]

(B) is "under/over/under". You dont really need the last "over". This is how my sump is set up and it works very well. You will see a lot the opposite way (A) but when I tried it that way i was not impressed with the performance.

I figured, the extra baffle would get the bubbles to the top of the water, lessening the chances of them getting sucked straight into the return pump. Does that make any sense?

As for flow, I am targeting about 3-7x. Any opinions on that?