DIY Sump/Refugium advice...Measurement help???-I made this!-3reef Forums

Otty · 12-15-2006, 07:49 AM

I am preparing to start a sump construction and I have a few question being a new-be at this hobby.

On the picture attached is three measurement I am confused with A, B, & C. Can anyone give me advice on how tall these should. Thanks in advance!

JustPhish · 12-15-2006, 08:45 AM

They should be as tall as will suit your purposes. A is just a way to keep bubbles from passing over to the pump. C is also to keep bubbles from passing to the pump by forcing water under the baffle since bubbles will rise to the top.

B is just whatever height you want to make your refugium X deep and nothing more. I personally think that the baffles in that drawing are much too tall but who knows if it's even to scale.

jtReef · 12-15-2006, 09:02 AM

I would make the first part as small as possible to leave more room in the fuge and the spot the pump is in. Also where the pump is you want to make that larger as well. I only say that because on mine during the summer I lose so much water that I find I need to add 3 gal of water a day making it impossible for me to go on vacation for a short weekend without having someone come over and add rodi water or I would have to add a auto top off.

As far as height make the tank as tall as you can. But make sure you can get your hands in there. Also make sure you have room for the water that may come back in a syphon should the power go out.

Dyngoe · 12-15-2006, 09:07 AM

I personally do not like that layout. I used an old 30 Gal tank for my sump/fuge and I put the fuge to one end and made it almost the entire height of the tank. In that design you are putting more water in the are where the skimmer sits. My skimmer can only handle ~7" of water depth. So, if I put my fuge after that I would have even less depth and subsiquent volume for my fuge. In my setup I have ~12 Gal of the tank allocated to refugium on one end of the tank. I run ~5-10% of my tank flow into there. I then have ~3 Gal allocated on the other end to trap bubbles coming from my tank. In the middle I have my true sump. Here I house my skimmer, heater, chiller inlet and outlet as well as the return pump. Since very little water runs through my fuge, I get little to no bubbles in the sump from that end. You really only have to worry about bubbles in areas of heavy water flow. Plus, if you incorporate a durso standpipe in your overflow then even fewer bubbles are produced.

Otty · 12-15-2006, 10:07 AM

The drawing is not to scale, it is just something I am dreaming up to help me get all my supplies together. Also, should I put a baffle between the return pump and the refugium to make sure bubbles are not getting back to the display tank. (The red line in the picture) Thanks again for the input on this, always afraid of making a mistake in uncharted territory.

Malachi · 12-15-2006, 10:57 AM

In mine I like to keep all levels the same, that way it was not to much pressure on the baffles. So just lower #A. Mistake I mad was that i made the pump return section to small and that was were the vaporization would show up. so i was always worried about the pump running dry.

jtReef · 12-15-2006, 10:58 AM

Don't be afraid to make a mistake.
I would expect all of us would make additional changes to ours if we had an oppertunity to do it again :-)

Dyngoe · 12-15-2006, 11:19 AM

Let me second what JTReef said. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. HOWEVER, from personal experience, it is nice to have access to a temporary sump. My first build did put too much pressure on the refugium wall and the seal broke. Luckily I had a 20 Gal tank I could use temporarily sump while my glue was drying on the new wall.
Now, as for a baffle on your sump. I don't think one is necessary. The water flowing out of your sump very slowly. It is usually high volumes splahing of water that cause bubbles.
All you need to get started is an old tank and two divider walls. One to create a bubble trap for the main inlet from the tank and the other to separate out the refugium. The middle section will act as your sump.

Otty · 12-15-2006, 12:49 PM

Just always afraid of Murphy's Law. I talk to some other people that gave me this ideal of letting the water trickle across LR rubble to help with filtration so I changed the concept a little. I will have to play with the hole sizes to make sure I keep a steady stream of water flowing but it should work. I plan on this now being a 55 gal tank so I have plenty of room. Thanks for the advice, a bunch!

Otty · 12-18-2006, 06:39 PM

Project about 65% complete,

still need to finish sealing in a couple of baffles tomorrow and let it sit another day then add water and drill some holes for water to trickle over LR rubble and adjust my flow. Here are some pics of my progress before sealant. Finally figured a place to put LR rubble.