New 62 inch sump design

[marzvt]

I am building a bigger refined version of the frankinsump that I am currently using. I have my sump in the basement and I was having problems getting the flowrates into the display tank to be as high as I wanted them. I took 3 inch pipe and from the former return chamber and brought it back to a new chamber right next to the water intake so that I could have as straight of a path up to the display as possible. The result was 200gph more flow with 2 amps less draw.

After running this system for a year this is my formalized version that solves many of my issues with my frankinsump.
First- The return to the return chamber is now wide enough they I can put marine pure blocks in it. The current version its just waisted space.
Second- I put the refugium after the skimmer. That wasn't an option of my current setup. and there has been a number of times the skimmer has become blocked from a rouge piece of Chaeto. Being pre skimmer also made it so I couldn't use the refugium to breed copepods.

One thing that I am not changing is use of a manifold for all my reactors, UV and chiller. But it is going to pull from the skimmer chamber.
View attachment 397759 Here is what I'm using now.



Here is the new design. It fits on a sheet 72X96 sheet of 3/8s and a 48X36 sheet of .25 for the covers.

This shows the basic setup.

 

[marzvt]

Just picked up the cut acrylic!

 

[marzvt]

Assembly

Assembly

The assembly went smooth. It took about a week A started with three sides and the base then assembled the interior.

 

[marzvt]

Finally installed

Finally installed

The sump is finally up and running. The only thing left is getting the calcium reactor online. In the end, I am really happy with the build and design. I am still playing around with flow in the refugium to reduce floating algae. I also have more Marine Pure on order for the refugium and back flow area.