Sump water flow through question

[SkinnyPete]

I designed my sump with three chambers. The left is the skimmer chamber, the right is the fuge, and the middle is the return chamber with a 1" bubble trap between the skimmer chamber and the return. Water would drain into either end and return in the middle. So even though I had about 700gph going through the sump, it was split so that only about 400gph was being pushed through the 1" bubble trap. The trap worked great. This is a pic of the original set-up before I started running it...

But, now here's the question. I'm toying with changing the chambers so that the skimmer is now all the way to the right where the fuge used to be - this is where water would enter, then a fuge in the middle where the return is now, and then the bubble trap and the return on the end. The point would be for a larger return chamber to make water changes a little easier, and also give me more room to add some rock. However, this new set-up would make my fuge smaller. This will be running on a 210g FOWLR set-up with some messy eaters, so I am looking for good nitrate reduction. Not sure if more live rock will outweigh a slightly smaller fuge.

My other concern is that I'd be pushing about 700-900gph through the bubble chamber with this set-up. Would that be too much flow for a 1" bubble trap? The sump is a 50g, so it's 36"x18". I don't remember off hand but I think my baffles are higher than most people's - I think 10-11".

Any opinions?

 

[mikede]

Great question as I am doing the same thing, except I had planned left to right; skimm, bubbletrap, fuge, then return. I am not correcting you or disagreeing with you, but I have to ask...If you drain into skimmer on one end and fuge on the other then aren't you failing to skim half of the water you drain. PLEASE realize I am asking out of ignorance, and not flaiming your idea.

 

[JayM]

You are allowing the chaeto, DSB & LR to perform natural filtration in the fuge, while the skimmer performs mechanical filtration on the other side.

 

[SkinnyPete]

You are allowing the chaeto, DSB & LR to perform natural filtration in the fuge, while the skimmer performs mechanical filtration on the other side.

Exactly. And even if I change the chamber order, I'll still probably drain into the fuge separately using a T somewhere so that the fuge is getting some unskimmed water. The baffle without the bubbletrap is slightly higher to control flow direction.

 

[bigdog]

im like mike 20 gallon sump left 2 right skimmer box frag box fug @return

 

[jovreef]

My sump looks exactly like your first pic except I put a T at the bottom of the 2 45 degree elbow's you have going into the skimmer section to dispurse water over to the fuge. Working great so far

 

[SkinnyPete]

My sump looks exactly like your first pic except I put a T at the bottom of the 2 45 degree elbow's you have going into the skimmer section to dispurse water over to the fuge. Working great so far

That's actually what I ended up doing after this picture was taken, and it really has worked fine. Maybe I"ll just keep that. A bigger fuge is probably good with such messy eaters.

 

[mikede]

hey skinny, can you post pic of alteration? I haven't plumbed mine yet.