fuge on top? or sump?

[EWC88]

Hey guys/girls, I'm starting to build my stand for my 37g tank, and was looking on here at people's tanks when I came across gregbot9000 thread. I liked the idea he had on having 2 tanks in his stand so I decided to do that.

But my question(S) for you guys are:

1. What tank should my tank drain into first? the fuge? or the sump were my skimmer, calc reactor will be?

2. What tank should be on the top shelf and what one on the bottom?

3. Filter socks, should I use that in my fuge or sump?

 

[ttomkat1]

Hello there... Good luck with your build. Make sure to post pics.

1.) You should have your display drain to your sump and get fed into your skimmer first. Give your skimmer first crack at removing waste.

2.) Sumps are usually located below the tank allowing the display to gravity feed down. There is debate on fuge placement. Some people argue that you should have your fuge above your display allowing it to gravity feed down to your display. Their argument is that the impellers in pumps can cut up little organisms. I keep my fuge below my tank.

3.) Use filter socks on sump.

Hope that helps

---ttomkat1

 

[EWC88]

Thanks ttomkat1 and I will deff show some pics...So your saying it should be like this from top to bottom: Tank, sump, fuge? or Tank, fuge, sump?

 

[ttomkat1]

Most people run everything below the display. The trick is thinking of how gravity is going to work. Gravity pulls water down from the display to my sump. I then have a small pump which pushes water up to my fuge (only about 1 ft). The water from my fuge gravity feeds back to my sump then my sump water gets pumped to my display.

IF you wanted to do a 3 tier system, I guess ideal would be to have your display gravity feed to your sump. Then have 1 pump feed back to the display and a different pump feed to a fuge located OVER the display. The fuge then gravity feeds to the display.

This is a bit extensive to have equipment everywhere that is why I just keep everything below the display. Here is my tank thread for a visual.


http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1094211&goto=newpost

 

[EWC88]

Very nice! I like how your setup is...I'm going to see if I can do a setup like that..Since I have a 37g it doesn't allow me to have much room in the stand, thats why I was going to have one tank on bottome of stand, then a shelf above that with another tank on that...Get what I'm saying?

 

[bllfish]

plumbing

plumbing

I would go tank, fuge, sump.
If you only have one drain coming from the tank I would "T" it so you could send water from the tank to both the sump and fuge. The fuge would then drain to the sump where the return pump would be located. You would be using gravity to get the water from the fuge to the sump, eliminating an extra pump. I would place a ball or gate valve between the "T" and the fuge so you could regulate the flow going to the fuge.
Here is a pic of the plimbing setup I just did on my tank and it is working. The differeence with yours would be you have one pipe from the "T" goiong to the fuge tank and the other going directly to the lower sump.

 

[EWC88]

do you think I should try to do it were the sump is sitting right next to the fuge as well or do the one on bottom and other on the shelf above the one on bottom?

 

[mg426]

Here mine

 

[bllfish]

I like your idea of one on top of the other. You can make a bigger sump and fuge. I wish I had room to do it your way. Will you have enough room to put a skimmer in the bottom sump?

 

[EWC88]

Yea I'm going have room for that and a calc reactor