my sump design...approval please

I bought that monstrosity remora pre-filter box and it doesn't help one bit. I just hate the cosmetic look of my tank. Have a ton of stuff inside the DT (skimmer box, heater, canister intake/out tubes, 2 Koralias and this surface skimmer I bought on DFS). I had to drill holes in the skimmer box bc if the water dropped just a little bit, it would run dry. So I bought the $9 surface skimmer, it works great, but its just another thing inside the DT.

 

Are you putting the Tunze in the second chamber??? That is not where you want it.

 

It's a small sump and I understand the reasons. I would reverse the order of the baffles on the left, this will force water down and under the first and thrid baffles, minimizing the chances of bubbles getting through.

Also based on your drawing, there is no way the water line in your return pump section would be there based on the water line in the rest of the symp. Maybe you know that and it's just drawn that way, just thought I'd mention it incase...

I would think you would want the ATO in your return pump section.

 

In theory, an under over under design should work better. Bubbles will be less at the bottom already. However, the problems with micro bubble put out by skimmers stay suspended much longer. To make it worse, most skimmer discharge under the surface.

So under over under makes the trap much less efficient.

Over under over keeps bubbles out of the display. If you make them sufficiently wide enough, water is taken off the surface where most bubbles pop and then they are forced down which they don't want to do. Then under then they are forced to the surface once more where most pop. The important thing is that IF any bubble make it through, they are kept at the water surface in the return section instead of exiting at the bottom of the trap and return section where they will most assuredly be sucked up by the return pump.

 

good thing I refreshed the page, Powerman beat me to it again

 

I somewhat agree with you guys....depending on the size of the sump. I have a 55g sump and initially I built it with baffles over/under/over thinking along the same lines...I ended up having lots of bubble problems so I reversed the baffles and added a short 4th baffle before the return pump (under/over/under/over) which solved the problem. I also like this design better because keep the water moving more in the sump. One thing I did was elevated my skimmer about 4 inches off the bottom of the sump which raised the skimmer output and probably helped resolved the problem. I also put some rock rubble between the last 2 baffles before it flows into the return pump section.

 

4 baffles is not either then. I'm not sure what you mean by "keeping the water moving more". Bubble traps are not just baffles. Not sure how wide yours is, but the wider the baffles the slower the flow and the more effective the trap is.

My over under over has baffles 1.5" apart with probably 500gph going through my sump. I'm testing a skimmer now that is putting out a ton of micro bubbles breaking in. Long story but it is shooting straight at my first baffle at the surface. Tons of bubbles. Zero in my return section. I could make a trap 1/4" apart with 10 baffles and my tank would be full of MBs.

 

Powerman, my baffles are 2" apart and I have a MAG9.5 return pump, figure with head loss I have somewhere around 600-700gph going through my sump (the fuge area is much slower). The reason I prefer the first baffle "under" is because a lot of the bubbles from the skimmer goes to the surface, by the time it gets to my 4th baffle there are no bubbles. IMO this approach also forces everything to the bottom where a lot of junk settles before going over the 2nd chamber, it's easy for me to vacuum it out or it's picked up by my water change pump bi-weekly.

Now there might not be enough room in a smaller sump to do 4 baffles 2" apart, but if I had to build a small sump I think I'd start the first baffle under, just my preference, either will work.

 

At two inches you should have no problems. Why I say over under over....is for 3 baffles, I want the bubbles to go to the top of the return section and not the bottom. As for the skimmer section, I agree an under first is the best way to do. Like you said though, not too many people have the space for 4 baffles.

 

Powerman/map95003: Thanks for the input...thus why I posted for you guys to approve.

Ok. So I will put the ATO in the return chamber.

Yeah I just drew the waterline.