Fuge/Sump Help

[Yinzer]

I just bought this and waiting for it to arrive.

I need some information as the best way to set it up.

first chamber on left is for the water to drain in and put my skimmer?
the middle would be for fuge with sand, rock and what else?
is the third chamber strictly for the my pump and the return?

what is the best way to have the water drain into the sump? right now I have a very small sump and it has two hoses running from each side of the tanks overflows and flow into a section with bio balls. I know to get rid of them and have the refugium instead but do I need to do some plumbing under there? Here is what is under there now, its a rough diagram and I removed my old skimmer which was too small and in the return flow area.

any diagram of how to set up the new one would help. my diagram shoud give you an idea of how my plumbing is already, it is flexible hose. Ray, its like the small hose you used to attach the skimmer to the pump, that kind of stuff.

Thanks for the help in advance, guys.

 

[Mitsuko]

I don't know if it matters but the way my HOB system is...the chamber on the far left of your picture is the return pump area. The middle is the fuge and the right is where the overflow falls into.

 

[Yinzer]

ok, thats a start, after looking at it again I didnt think that my skimmer would fit in that first slot.

 

[scottio]

sump/fuge

sump/fuge

I would also put some Cheato in the middle part of the sump with a small compact light to help it grow.
I saw on another post you asked what Cheato was? Cheato is a macro alge that is great for taking out excess nutrients in your tank. You can put it in your sump/fuge and it takes up excess nutirents as food. As the Cheato grows you can take some out and what is left will grow again.

 

[Yinzer]

excellent, do you put it in with the sand and live rock and is there an inexpensive light that would work for under there?

 

[MikeCentore]

Some people put sand and live rock in with it, I don't think its absolutely necessary. I bought a light from home depot that clips onto my sump and put small compact florescent bulb in it. It cost me less that $10 to set up.

 

[raynist]

Is the compartment big enough for your skimmer?

 

[Yinzer]

15x12 im pretty sure

 

[LeviChar1]

awesome drawing. i like the jumping arrow over the sponge!

i use portable sand beds in my sump. little tupperware sandwich containers. it works.

 

[bmiller1234]

So my take on this as I just dealt with mine. The right is water in. The center is skimmer and left is return. You might have a bubble in DT with that bubble trap and with a small return area like that your goingg to he topping off a lot. your not going to be able to have a fuge space cause whatever you out in center is going to be with skimmer.

I made my sump fuge really cheapp and easy. Total cost for a forty gallon and baffles and silicone was 75 bucks and works great.

 

[cloakerpoked]

In your picture, the right hand side is the entrance chamber to the sump. You can tell because of the way the wall is broken and slotted. I've never understood why they do that, but there it is. The bubble trap goes right before the return...so the left is the return. Obviously you can turn the tank around to accomodate your setup if you want them backwards, but that's the way that sump is designed to operate.

A refugium or macro-algea growth area can be anywhere. Preferably in the center chamber, but again, depending on space, there's no reason it can't be in with the skimmer. All you'll want to do is keep it separated (a small eggcrate box would work fine for this) so that it doesn't clog your pump in any way. I use a mix of cheato and calerpa. The Calerpa (sp?) actually grows much better in my tanks, as I've never had a ton of luck with cheato. The downside being that it can go sexual and really muck up your water if you're not paying attention or if it decides your water conditions are really favorable. I've never had this happen to me, but some people have. Cheato doesn't go sexual...making it safer.

 

[bmiller1234]

Sorry, I should have clarified, you can fill it with rock and eggcrate off some macro of some sort, but I wouldn't put sand in that area personally. That euro reef moves ALOT of water around and its going to sandstorm that area or whatever doesn't have any weight to it.

 

[Yinzer]

thanks, I think I'm gonna shy away from the sand. How should I hook up the plumbing for the inflow? Do I have it just pour in out of hose or PVC? I know nothing about plumbing. Since it will
be coming from both sides like in my awesome diagram, doninneed tonwarch out how fast it pours in?

 

[Yinzer]

Damn iPhone smart text. Let's try this again...do I need to watch how fast it pours in?

 

[bmiller1234]

You do not want to regulate flow in from display. That's how floods happen. What size return pump are you using? are you using an overflow or is your tank drilled?

the only thing you want to regulate is your return pump. If that's just restricting flow or diverting it back into sump. You want to match your water out to display to what your overflow can handle. So if your overflow can handle 500 gph you want your retrn to be around 400 gph. Or less deending on how much flow you want thru your sump. If your overflow is 500 and you pump 600 them your going to flood your display.

 

[cloakerpoked]

You do not want to regulate flow in from display. That's how floods happen. What size return pump are you using? are you using an overflow or is your tank drilled?

the only thing you want to regulate is your return pump. If that's just restricting flow or diverting it back into sump. You want to match your water out to display to what your overflow can handle. So if your overflow can handle 500 gph you want your retrn to be around 400 gph. Or less deending on how much flow you want thru your sump. If your overflow is 500 and you pump 600 them your going to flood your display.

If it's an over-the-back, you want it fast enough to keep bubbles from accumulating in the syphon overflow.

Definitely only restrict the pump though.

 

[bnmir]

I think i have to disagree with some above statements. It looks to me like the left hand section is the inflow from the tank. Its the correct place for the skimmer because the water level will remain constant (has to go over the bottom baffle and under the upper baffle).
The far right is where the return pump will go. (the bottom baffle here appears lower, meaning water will get to the pump longer before evap catches up.).
You could split the flows making both ends input from the tank (skimmer left, refugium right) and make the center the return pump. That would give you the most evaporation time, but a small refugium.

 

[NaClH2Opgh]

I think i have to disagree with some above statements. It looks to me like the left hand section is the inflow from the tank. Its the correct place for the skimmer because the water level will remain constant (has to go over the bottom baffle and under the upper baffle).
The far right is where the return pump will go. (the bottom baffle here appears lower, meaning water will get to the pump longer before evap catches up.).
You could split the flows making both ends input from the tank (skimmer left, refugium right) and make the center the return pump. That would give you the most evaporation time, but a small refugium.

+1

I know they normally do have the baffles before the return. I think the split in the last section on the right is so the return pump doesn't pull and detritus from the bottom instead of having the space at the very bottom. The middle and right sections water level will fluctuate with evaporation.

 

[bmiller1234]

I disagree with your disagree ha HA. he's going to be running a euro reef 180. The only place that's going to fit is in the center. I agree with you if the left section was about a foot longer that would be skimmer section. The problem comes when it needs the constant level in center section which then creates the need to use that sump in reverse so the right and center stay constant level and the left will fluctuate and house the return.

I guess its possible to run it left to right with an ato to keep skimmer in a constant level. but then there's no bubble trap to keep bubbles out of return pump except for the split wall.
yinzer. What are the dimensions of the sump? How tall is that baffle? I wasn't even considering that for the depth your skimmers going to be in. Where did you get the sump from?

 

[Mitsuko]

My ecosystem 40 runs as I described before. The right side of your pic is where the overflow runs into it. The middle is for algae, and the left side is the return. This is how the manufacturers engineered it. As bmiller1234 stated above the only part that truly remains at a constant level on mine is the center chamber. The return chamber in the left of your picture will always fluctuate and this is where I keep my ATO float in order to keep that chamber consistent.

What kind of overflow do you have for it? The ecosystem 40 I have relies on a syphon tube in the overflow box. This makes it impossible to put a skimmer in that chamber since the bubbles would flow up the u-tube eventually breaking the syphon. I personally would put the skimmer at the beginning of the middle chamber and float chaeto next to it in order to trap any micro bubbles before entering the return chamber.