fuge setup question

S

sniper87

I recently added a refugium to my tank and got rid of my old wet/dry. I am having a problem keeping enough water in the return section to keep the mag 18 fed. I was wondering if someone could point me in the direction on how much flow into each section should I have? I have seen people say around 75% here and 25% here. Any help would be great. Sorry the pic is so crappy its from my phone. If i need to get more pic I can just have to find my camera.

The way it runs if you can't tell is:

Right- skimmer section
Middle- fuge area
Left- Return

Also does anyone think that I need to raise the skimmer up on a stand?
 
100% of the pump drain should go into your skimmer section. The return area will go down based on evaporation. You need to top off with RO to keep the water level higher. I'm not sure of the dimensions of the return section to know how much daily evaporation you are getting, but I typically have 2-3 gallons on my 120 system.

The skimmer depends on the water level for that brand of skimmer. Usually 10" of water is the max recommended, but it depends on the skimmer specifications.
 
@sniper87 wrote:
I recently added a refugium to my tank and got rid of my old wet/dry. I am having a problem keeping enough water in the return section to keep the mag 18 fed. I was wondering if someone could point me in the direction on how much flow into each section should I have? I have seen people say around 75% here and 25% here. Any help would be great. Sorry the pic is so crappy its from my phone. If i need to get more pic I can just have to find my camera. The way it runs if you can't tell is: Right- skimmer section Middle- fuge area Left- Return Also does anyone think that I need to raise the skimmer up on a stand? said:
Hi,
When you talk ratio's, it's usually when you have the return in the middle, the fuge on one end and skimmer section on the other end, then you have a ball valves on the line going to the fuge area to control flow. Whith your setup you have to drain 100% into the skimmer section so it's important to select the correct pump for your application. What size tank is this on, is it reef ready or do you have a overflow box???

Cheers,
Click to expand...
 
I guess I should have given a little more detail. My fault!! This is on a Deep Sea Aquatics 140 RR. It has dual corner overflows in tank. The overflows are about 10" wide and about 5.5" to 6" from front to back. They span the full height of the tank. Total dimensions are 48"x24.5"x29".
Hope that helps some and thanx for the replies so far. The percentage thing was throwing me off.
 
@sniper87 wrote:
I guess I should have given a little more detail. My fault!! This is on a Deep Sea Aquatics 140 RR. It has dual corner overflows in tank. The overflows are about 10" wide and about 5.5" to 6" from front to back. They span the full height of the tank. Total dimensions are 48"x24.5"x29". Hope that helps some and thanx for the replies so far. The percentage thing was throwing me off. said:
Sooo.... you have two drain's tied into one line for the sump, that may be part of your problem. How are you joining the drain line's and what's their diameter. You should be draining <u>at least </u>1200gph, if that mag is plumbed correctly it still is not pushing 1200GHP up to the tank if you take head loss, plumbing loss into account.

Cheers,
Click to expand...
 
Actually I have two separate drain lines. One from each overflow. If you notice in the pic on hose is going straight into the skimmer section and the other is going into the return section. That was only temporary until I could get them set to drain into the skimmer section at the same time. I am currently considering the idea of hard lining the drains and returns, but I'm not sure if I want to tackle that or not. If I calculated the head loss it is right at 1200 gph. I have the return lines as short as possible to cut down the head loss.

http://www.marineandreef.com/Articles.asp?ID=124

According to the chart I am running 1125gph based on a 6' head. Should I be running more? Thanks again for the help. I'm fairly new to SW, but have had various FW tanks for quite awhile. SW has such a higher learning curve :)
 
@sniper87 wrote:
Actually I have two separate drain lines. One from each overflow. If you notice in the pic on hose is going straight into the skimmer section and the other is going into the return section. That was only temporary until I could get them set to drain into the skimmer section at the same time. I am currently considering the idea of hard lining the drains and returns said:
Not sure if you are aware of this but in order for Mag pumps to pump to their spec, the return plumbing's size has to be doubled so if that's not correct then your calculation is off. I believe the issue is really with the drain lines, that could be a bottleneck preventing proper drainage, are they connected to a tee? You could also be getting air trapped in the drain lines creating somewhat of a air lock. Can you post pic's of how you have the drain line's connected along with plumbing size. :)

Cheer's
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Currently, I am using the drain lines that are used in a wet/dry system as my drain lines. The drain lines are not connected to a "tee". They are two separate lines. I believe the drain line size is 1" or very close to it. The return lines coming off of the Mag are 3/4" i.d. flex line. It has a "Y" fitting in it to send the return to both of the return loclines in the display. I actually have solved some of the drain problem. I didn't have quite enough water running thru the sump. Once I added some more water it helped with kepping the Mag covered. The main thing I am concerned about now is do I have enough water turn over in the tank? I know that you are supposed to have x number over total tank volume but I don't think that my Mag is able to keep up.
 
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