Refugium Plumbing to Sump???

[boc]

Hey guys,
I have a 75g rubbermaid stock tank that I plan on using as a refugium.
My first question is, I plan on feeding the refugium from my tanks main return. The refugium is positioned lower than the main tank but higer than the sump. I want to gravity feed from the refugium back to the sump but want to avoid going through the return pump.
So my idea would be to T into the tank return line after the pump. Since this line is high pressure and my refugium output would be low pressure is there a T or vavle that would allow this?
Also I have a blueline 70 pump, do you think this is adequate to supply enough pressure for the main return and to provide slow water movement in the refugium?

Thanks for your time

 

[Spuds725]

As long as you put a valve after the tee that feeds your fuge you can control the amount of flow going to the fuge and not overwhelm the gravity return back to your sump...

I plugged that pump into the headloss calc-- looks like you will have plenty of flow

http://reefcentral.com/calc/hlc2.ph...Couplings=0&CheckValves=0&Exits=1&Entrances=1

I don't know your plumbing sizes so I oversized the pipe diameters and used 5 vertical feet--- got over 1600 gph

you should plug in your own values....

 

[boc]

I probably wasn't clear with my original question. My return line(s) off the blueline70 will be divided 3 ways. 1 line feeding the refugium and the other 2 back into the tank on opposite ends.
The line feeding the refugium will have the flow controlled by a valve.
The return from the refugium I didn't want to gravity feed back into the sump because it would have to go through the return pump again (possibly killing any shrimps I plan on harvesting). I wanted to T into one of the return lines after the pump that feeds the main tank??
But since the tanks return will be high pressure and the line from the refugium will be low pressure how do you connect them?

 

[tm613]

I don't beleive that is possible, the high pressure return will just push the return from the fuge back into the fuge (so you would have 2 in, 0 out and it would overflow)

 

[boc]

So does everyone run the refugium above the main tank and just gravity feed into the tank?

 

[tm613]

I think most people run teh refugium either in or just above the sump. The pods/shrimp getting hurt by the pump issue is typically not worried about