Sump Design Question

[Bl4ckDr4g0n]

I have 45 lbs of brs dry pukani curing.
Picking up 65 gallon reef ready tank tomorrow.
Have a 29 gallon tank for sump.
Vertex Omega 130 skimmer.
Reading the documentation on the skimmer this beast has an 8.5" x 11" footprint, and wants 2" unobstructed in front of the intake and output ports. Also states that the skimmer chamber should be calm. I want to do a 3 section sump with a refugium, and so I am wondering if it would be viable to do a 3 section sump where the first chamber is the intake/refugium, second chamber for skimmer, and last chamber for return? I have searched sump designs and have not seen any instances of someone doing it that way, but I was hoping maybe it was a viable design to contend with the demands of the skimmer while living in a small sump.

 

[runningrandy04]

It may work out well, depending on your use of the refugium. Do you want high flow for cheato or are you looking to do something with sand and live rock?

 

[Bl4ckDr4g0n]

I was thinking of using marinepure in the fuge and skimmer sections and some chaeto in the fuge

 

[runningrandy04]

Your plan should be good then. Contemplate a place for filter socks on the drains. Some hate them, some love them, but everyone loves them on maintenance day when your stirring up the tank and it pours into the sump. I plan to get some marine pure myself, but avoid the vibration areas with pumps. I've heard it will crumble easily.

Welcome to the site by the way. You are way ahead of the game when you start off here.

 

[Bl4ckDr4g0n]

I still haven't decided if I want to deal with mechanical filtration or not, but I certainly had not considered the potential mess cleaning can stir up. I am looking forward to picking up the tank tomorrow so I can have a better understanding of where exactly its drilled. I want to to toss the durso and return, and just plumb a herbie myself. So I am not looking to tee the drain pipes, nor lose space trying to create an intake section that feeds the skimmer. I only have 30 inches and the skimmer demands 11 on its own. If the intake/fuge is 9" that should leave plenty of room for this. That leaves me 11 inches for bubble trap and return section, which if my calculations are correct should be enough to keep the pump from forming a vortex and allow for back flow in the case of power failure. Fuge would be 14" high, and skimmer section 13" high. That should give me a fuge that is 10% DT volume. Then I just need to build a stand for the skimmer, but I figure I might as well take advantage of the height of this sump, as long as I can still get the collection cup off the skimmer. I still need to figure out an ATO reservoir solution. I don't have much space left in the stand. I may need a way to hide one next to the stand.

 

[Bl4ckDr4g0n]

Hopefully this design works out.

Sent from my HTC6535LVW using Tapatalk

 

[Pilotman520]

Make sure you can remove the skimmer with the sump in the stand. I didn't check that and due to where my baffles are I cannot remove it to clean it. In the process of making a new sump with a different baffle layout so that I can.

 

[Pilotman520]

Also, your baffles look really tall. Will you have enough capacity for drain down with a power outage?

 

[Bl4ckDr4g0n]

The skimmer does come out of the sump while located in the stand. The baffles are tall, I get a total capacity of about 20 gallons from this 29 gallon tank. The return section is 13" before it starts filling into the skimmer section. So it holds approximately 6 gallons of water. If I assume regular operating range of 7" of water to keep 3" above a 4" tall return pump then that leaves about 2.7 gallons for the DT to drain. The DT is a 65 gallon so I calculated that I need to be able to handle ~ 2 gallons from the DT when the pump is not running. I need to get this thing plumbed so I can validate my math.

 

[Pilotman520]

Not quite sure I understand your setup. Looking at your pic the drain comes in from the left. Then skimmer then return? Also your bubble trap in unconventional. Most go over under over. Looks like yours goes the other way.

 

[Bl4ckDr4g0n]

Yes water enters the left. I am going to do a herbie style overflow with 2 pipes that I will have drain into a 7" filter sock. I will place live rock and chaeto in that section so I will have mechanical and biological filtration in the first section. It will overflow into the skimmer section to remove DOCs, and then through the bubble trap to the return section. I took the advice from here which states that over under over becomes a detritus trap, where as under over under will leave any detritus that makes it through in the skimmer section.