'Fuge plumbing...

[scbadiver]

While the rest of you are getting ready to go to te frag swap, I'm sitting here at work wishing I was off, and I had water in my tank so I could come too. Oh well.
My question is, what are the advantages, if any, to plumbing the fuge to receive it's flow directly from the main tank vs. pumping it to it from the sump and letting it gravity feed back? Any difference as far as the tank and inhabitants go? The obvious draw back would be an extra pump but since I already own it..... What do y'all think?

 

[MayoBoy]

If you can put it higher than your tank and let it gravity feed back to the tank, you'll get more pods in the tank because they don't get ground up by the pump

 

[scbadiver]

I can't do that at all because my tank is upstairs and all the filtration is in the basement. I'm not overly concerned about the pods as much as I am the nutrient export and algal growth part. I think it would be benificial to drain the tank right to it but that will require a LOT of modifications. Will it hurt anything to run it as a recirc from the sump you think? Thanks.

Robbie

 

[latazyo]

put a T off your drain, thats how mine is

since you're sump is in the basement and you dont care about the pods you could position the fuge higher than the sump and then T off the drain into the fuge, which would overflow into the sump and you wouldnt need an extra pump at all

 

[scbadiver]

Thats how I used to have it but I can't make that work anymore due to space limitations (and lazyness as I'd have to replumb the whole thing to make that work now because I have to move the fuge). I can recirc from the sump fairly painlessly so I'm kinda leaning toward that. This is probably going to be temporary set up but I'll be running it a year or so.