Protein skimmer questions

[JCheung]

Don't know if this post would go here but. Hey what are those external protein skimmers? How do they pump water in/out? Can you store them in say a closet under your tank? I was thinking of having a hang on overflow from my 90 gallon into the protein skimmer and then that would travel up to the refugium and then from there a drilled overflow back into the main tank. Would that work?

 

[grundig5]

By external you may be referring to a recirculating skimmer. If thats so, it basically uses the pump(s) to pull air and recirculate water that is fed into the chamber via a pump or better a tee from the overflow line receiving surface skimmed water. You can run one outside the tank pretty easily, but I believe the skimmer needs to drain via gravity (ie. I dont think you could pump water UP from the skimmer to a sump---correct me if I am wrong). A visual of your intended plumbing would be helpful for the experts to see (not me). good luck

 

[pillowfish]

I haven't had my coffee in a couple of weeks, so not fully awake....
You can have a HOB(hang on back) protein skimmer but without seeing a diagram I am confused about what you are asking...I do not believe it is feasible to have a HOB skimmer pump the water DOWN into a sump/refugium and re-direct the flow back UP into the main tank. The HOB skimmer will draw water and air fromt he tank into the chambers and the return is back into the tank.(If that made sense)
Most people IME/IMO including myself have their protein skimmers in the sump itself=I actually have 2 one is a CPR backpak HOB type and the other is a Super Skimmer....this is located under my tank as it was a reef ready tank drilled with the overflow.
Easy mental picture is a 30g tank with 3 partitions...1st chambers is the refugium(contains chaeto-live macro algae) which is drilled and plumbed to drain in thee sump as water filters through the live media...middle chamber is the return pump and the 3rd chamber would be the sump containing live rock for biological filtration and it is also where both of my skimmers are located-the HOB obviously hangs onto the chamber of the tank and the Super Skimmer is placed directly inside the sump with the live rock...the overflow from the tank is diverted by a ball valve ensuring both the refugium and sump partions receive the proper amounts of water/flow they can handle before the water flows to the middle chamber where the return pump is.
Lather..Rinse..Repeat.. Ok so not an easy picture but I am not deleting or editing it took too long to type out...Sorry

 

[JCheung]

ok will try to draw a bitmap picture of this

 

[JCheung]

Tank Setup Concept

Ok this is a poorly drawn picture but i think it gets the point across.

The Blue squares are the tanks, the black squares are the stands, and the red square is the protein skimmer. The yellow squigglys are the hose lines to and from tanks.
I think the protein skimmers are recirculating skimmers and i thought that they have pumps to force the water back to the tank/sump.
I saw this external protein skimmer on another post and i posted the question there but it got split off into it's own thread.

 

[JCheung]

Oh yeah there is no Sump in the above picture.