Quick question about different types of drilling holes

[Modemagic]

While browsing the forum as I often do lately trying to learn a thing or two, I noticed one member had a tank with four holes drilled in it. Two were for the overflow and two were for a 'closed loop'.

The two overflow holes were/are for plumbing down to a fuge tank correct??

Whats a 'closed loop'? I assume its just a pump circulating water in one hole and out the other?? Whats the purpose and advantage of this?

 

[waverz]

Ill take this one even though ive had a few beers i think i can explain this simply....


The holes for the overflow either got to a refugium or sump. The closed loop is for circulation purposes. For more info just do a search for "closed loop".

 

[got2lb]

Re: Quick question about different types of drilling holes

Originally posted</a> by Modemagic
Whats a 'closed loop'? I assume its just a pump circulating water in one hole and out the other?? Whats the purpose and advantage of this?

More or less, YES!

You're basically taking water from one spot in the tank and pumping it to a different spot. It's a nice way not to have any pumps or anything like that in the tank, but you still get the water movement. I'm sure their are other benefits but I don't have a closed loop so I don't know all the ins and outs of them! I'm sure these guys with all the fuzzy sticks can fill you in though!

 

[Modemagic]

After doing quite a bit of reading and searching I found an old post that might be worth a revival. Although the 'Easy question' post was quite funny, thats not it.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=742666&highlight=Closed+Loop

'dascharisma' gives a pretty good rundown of the closed loop theory.

This brings me to my next couple of questions, which i really couldn't find a definate answer to:

Running a closed loop really seems to not give you much in the way of options for routing water, etc. How much does say a Reef Ready tank give you? The way I understand the tank, within the overflow, the inlet and outlet are both there... is this correct? If thats the case you really don't get much flow at all. You would still need to run some sort of a powerhead to get some good water flowing within the tank.

My other question opens up a whole can of worms for me at least. (bear with me, I'm still a newbie) Whats the difference between a sump and a fuge/refugium?? I've seen them referred to as the same thing, and two totally different things. Also, if you run a fuge, do you need a seperate protein skimmer or does your fuge act as one?

 

[Philby]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8675125#post8675125 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Modemagic


Running a closed loop really seems to not give you much in the way of options for routing water, etc. How much does say a Reef Ready tank give you? The way I understand the tank, within the overflow, the inlet and outlet are both there... is this correct? If thats the case you really don't get much flow at all. You would still need to run some sort of a powerhead to get some good water flowing within the tank.

A closed loop (CL) can have as many outlets as you want (if your pump(s) can handle them, which gives you plenty of options for routing water. The outlets from the CL can be other holes drilled in the tank or can be positioned over the top of the tank (do a search on "manifold"). Since the water doesn't have to travel very far, you don't get a lot of the head/friction loss of a return from a sump which is typically below the tank, sometimes well below...and since there isn't loss you can have more/higher powered outlets. typically a pressure rated pump is used as opposed to flow rated.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8675125#post8675125 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Modemagic


My other question opens up a whole can of worms for me at least. (bear with me, I'm still a newbie) Whats the difference between a sump and a fuge/refugium?? I've seen them referred to as the same thing, and two totally different things. Also, if you run a fuge, do you need a seperate protein skimmer or does your fuge act as one? [/B]

A sump and fuge are different, although a fuge is often located in a sump. A sump is another place to put water to increase your water volume which makes the water "chemistry" more stable. People also use it to "hide" equipment such as heaters/skimmers/etc that they don't want detracting from the view in their main tank (only hidden if sump is hidden). A fuge is a place to remove/contain certain nutrients people don't want in their tanks, a protein skimmer also removes things from the water, but different things. a tank can survive with neither, either or both...and different people have different setups (depending on what they're trying to recreate).

If you check out the newbie forum in the sticky section, there's a great thread by travis savant that addresses many things, sump/fuge/skimmers included. There's also a newbie thread by waterkeeper that has a link to a 3pt article on sumps that addresses them in greater detail, and includes references to fuges.

 

[Philby]

sorry i meant travis stevens not travis savant (not sure where i got that...)

 

[Modemagic]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8677866#post8677866 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Philby
sorry i meant travis stevens not travis savant (not sure where i got that...)

I found it by Travis Stevens before you posted this one... at some point of my 28 pages of reading on that sticky forum posting, you posted the correction!