New Refugium/sump idea

I have a 55 gallon tank and a 10 gallon tank in the garage. In the closet currently i just have a 30 gallon tank with a filter sock and skimmer and then hooked to the return pump that runs through the chiller before it gets back to the DT. This seriously reduces the flow Last year I went up north to work and forgot to turn on the ATO so I burned up a bunch of equipment. Heaters, UV light, Two pumps etc etc. I'm in the process of getting a new pump. Thinking about the reef flow dart. So I figured I might as well set up the refugium up again since I want to start adding corals and getting things back to the way it used to be. I have extra glass in the garage I can use for baffles. Let me know what you think about design. The removable tray can be used for some type of media. Not sure if carbon would be good with corals. Maybe can be used for a phosphate remove or something else.

 

So will this be in the 30g, or the 10g? What's the temp in your home? Are you running MH lights? Is that why you need a chiller?

And no Cheato? ;-)

 

I just went through the same thing building my sump/refugium. Your plan was very similar to my first idea, I however ended up putting my skimmer on the left like you have, next is the bubble trap, going into the return section, and refugium on the right. I'm either going to feed the refugium off my return pump or off my drain line. This design allows you to control flow through your refugium where your design cannot. I ultimately like the thought of one more thing I can control so that's why I chose mine. However no one told me my first( similar to yours) design would not work when I was asking questions. I used a 29 gallon tank and have a 57 gallon display. Here's the plans for what I built, good luck

 

This will be a 55 gallon tank. Temp in the house usually 77º. I used to run MH I just recently changed them to LED's and T5's It still runs just nowhere near as often as before. Everything is in the Master Bedroom closet. So I have plenty of room to do whatever.

 

Before I had a refugium that was elevated off the bottom that allowed me to control the flow through the refugium since water flowed freely underneath it. and over the top as well.

 

this is what it currently looks like. The future plans are included hope you can see it ok.