Todays question - sump & skimmer

[Zoregon]

First off I want to say thank you to all for your wonderful advice. The learning curve is soo steep. My old 90 I never checked parameters, threw the fish in without qt - you get the idea. I never had to worry about fish size/compatability because I had to restock every 6 months and I never knew why .....now I have found you

So please know that all advice is being acted upon and you're not talking to someone who goes mmmhhhmmm and then does whatever they want.

As a reminder, I'm in the build phase of my 180 gal. As my finger was hovering over the "buy" button for all my goodies I started second guessing my sump and skimmer selections. I was going to go with the e-shopps 300 refugium but after looking at some videos decided I didn't like the way it was set up.

I am now looking at the Trigger Ruby 36 sump and the Bubble Magus 7 as my skimmer. I don't have a lot of clearance under my stand and would like to put in a reef octopus but they're too tall. My main concern is the sump states "fixed water level: 9.5" and the skimmer requires 9.5-11". How can a water level be fixed? I don't understand at all and have googled my heart out trying to.

Will this sump and skimmer be sufficient? And if I'm this worried about the build, I'm going to owe everyone a round once we get to fish & corals.....

 

[GimpyFin]

The sump and skimmer look ok to me. Some of the sumps have a slider baffle instead of fixed grates to allow the water level to be adjusted. I think the Ruby Elite and Emerald Triggers are adjustable. I actually have the newer Eshopps R-300 and find it to be quite nice for the money. (It also has a fixed water level around 9" in the skimmer area which works ok for me.) I think the main complaint people have with the new Eshopps is the chamber for the return being located in the back. Although, IMO, it makes for a cleaner look in the sump along with the white acrylic accents, and the skimmer section is huge.

 

[Zoregon]

Yes - that's exactly it. I don't like where the chamber is located. Isn't the pump chamber where your ATO is supposed to be located? I don't want to have to crawl under my stand to do maintenance.

I also heard that after a couple of years they start to bow due to the acrylic not being very thick. (but this could be a one off and not the norm)

 

[GimpyFin]

The pump chamber in the Eshopps has a built-in float valve, if you want to use it for a gravity ATO. I have my Eshopps ATO tank integrated into the hood and then just ran the tubing out the back of the hood down to the float in the return chamber. A lot of sumps use 1/4" acrylic so they can bow a little.

 

[anthonys51]

i am actually buying a 180 myself. The owners wife had picked out an eshopps sump and another skimmer. I told the owner myself i wanted this be the Cadillac of fish tank, best of everything. he told me to get precision marine r36 sump and either bubble magnus or reef octopus skimmer. i might go with bubble because of it being a little shorter.