Sump design will it work?

I think the flow will be fine. You should be have somewhere between 300 and 500 GPH through the sump/refugium give the DT size. I have cheato and live rock in a refugium with more flow than you would have in your sump and it grows fine. You might not have as many pods with stronger flow, but the cheato will not suffer.

I want pods so i slow the flow.
 
Heres a crude idea of what you need to do. The ball valve is very important to this "2 small 10g tank" design. You will want to slow down the flow going through the refuge but maximize the flow going out the return. This is a very simple design, and it works perfectly. I used it for 2.5 years on my 55g. It worked so well I used, some what, of the same design when I up graded to my 120g, just used bigger tanks.
sump.jpg
 
Last edited:
Sorry I made a serious mistake in the drawing above. The ball valve will need to below the "T". So by closeing it part way you cause the water to backup and flow to the other side.

sump-1.jpg
 
Heres a crude idea of what you need to do. The ball valve is very important to this "2 small 10g tank" design. You will want to slow down the flow going through the refuge but maximize the flow going out the return. This is a very simple design, and it works perfectly. I used it for 2.5 years on my 55g. It worked so well I used, some what, of the same design when I up graded to my 120g, just used bigger tanks.
sump.jpg

thanks for the idea! few questions, wht size piping are you using, and wont the skimmer after the fuge suck up all the pods?
 
I'm always a fan of having the water from the DT first go to the skimmer and the fuge is feed through a tee off of the return line. [skimmer - return - fuge]

This way, you can remove as much detrimus that would build up in the sump first in the skimmer. since the skimmer section has nothing but the skimmer, its easier to vac out detrimus versus having it settle on top of the sand.

IMO that works the best, clearner also.
 
1in PCV. If you worried about the pods then think about how much action they are going to get when they go through your return pump. But you can always extend the over flow pipe from the fuge to the return section. Pods generally stay toward the bottom, but they do travel. They always find a way into you system.
sump1-1.jpg
 
Cool. No matter how you look at pods are always a good thing. So having the complete10g dedicated to a low flow refuge is going to be your best bet to maximize your pod propagating area.
 
Sorry I lied. I was a little jumpy this morning from the coffee. Although it's very close to the other designs.... here is the exact design I used for my 55g.

I had 2, over flows in each corner of the display tank, each had a 1in durso, and a 3/4in line loc for the return. I used a mag9 for the return pump, 1in pvc to a SWCD, split with 3/4in black tube to each coner, line loc. With the mag9 it gave me enough flow, I didn't need any other pumps in the display tank, which made for a clean look. Although I only had softies and zoa at the time.

sump3.jpg
 
Last edited:
Back
Top