Need assistance designing a sump

Third time is a charm right??? :)

1- I need the skimmer section to have a water flow level of 14 and 1/2 inches for my current skimmer.
2- I would like a decent refugium area but I am not really sure what the water level in this area will be???
3- I would like to have a "fish holding" area to hold fish that I am not yet ready to introduce into my main display.
4- Is my return area. I just need enough room and water depth to hold my Mag 12 but would like room to expand if need be.

My problem is understanding the flow of the water... I need at least 14" of water in section 1 and would like 10-14" of water in my refugium area and probably the same in the fish holding area. I only need around 6-10 inches of water to cover my return pump BUT I would like to have enough room to hold the water that will flood my sump in case of a power outage... These are my desires and concerns. Anyone with knowledge on the subject I would MOST appreciate your input!!

Mark if you are lurking on the board I would most appreciate your input! I would also like to know if you have any spare acrylic laying around that you would like to sell me to assist me in putting this together. My dimensions are 12" wide and 18" high. I am guessing I need to leave 1/8th of an inch off for silicon? Will that be enough space???
 
I guess if I need to ask a question it would be how high does the tall pieces need to be off of the bottom of the tank? How far apart can the first piece be from the second piece? How tall can the second piece be or should I ask how tall should it be???
 
My input would be that the baffles that seperate the skimmer and the refugium areas need to be sealed at the bottom to maintain water height in those areas. How high depends on how much water is displaced from the display tank if the power goes off and your pump turns off. I would also say i'm not sure your fish holding area will work because fish will swim under the baffle and into your refugium and eat all the pods. Also another tip i would say is that the bigger the return area is the less often you have to fill it up due to evaporation.

good luck.
 
How large of a foot print does the skimmer need? Also you want to isolate the refuge from the full flow of the sump, it doesn't need much. Salty made some good points, a small return section will need some type of auto top off to keep a stable water level.

I would do something like this, split your return to feed the refuge or split the drain to feed the skimmer and the refuge. You could also switch the Fish hold and refuge if you don't want your fish eating the pods that overflow. I think the fish hold will take up too much room, or not provide enough room for them, but you could make it work by giving up some return section space.

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If you plan to use the fish hold area as a quasi QT area for newly introduced fish, I think that that would be a not so good idea... as infected/sick fish would still infect your main display. If you want to qt, then you must have a stand-alone tank setup for this purpose that is seperate from your main system.

Cheers!
 
To the point about the fish from the holding area swimming under baffles to eat pods - if your intent is to just have a "quiet" place for new specimens, then why not just make the fuge section bigger, since they'll end up in there anyway?

But, I would agree with having a separate QT over putting them in the same system.
 
Thank you all so much for taking the time to reply!
The fish holding area is really not that important to me. I just wanted an area I could "hold" fish in until I could find them a new home for example. Rather than having to tear up my refugium to try to catch them again. I can take it out of the mix and just make my refugium larger if that will make things easier.
Marine-noob I like your idea of putting the refugium on the opposite end of the tank and splitting the drain from the tank.
So I guess I just need to glue each panel to the floor of the tank and set the desired height of each section according to the height of the panel? Is that a safe assumption?
 
Now that you can see the final product I would REALLY appreciate your feedback!!!! I plan on tearing my tank down this weekend so I can pull my tank away from the wall to be able to install this baby! If the are any MAJOR design flaws I would like to address them now before I go thru so much effort....

Thanks for your time and input!
 
So the flow if from Right to Left, correct? Will your skimmer be able to work at that depth, or are you going to make a stand for it?

Will there be enough room in that sump in case of pump failure/power outage?

Will you add a bubble tower in the corner of the skimmer section?
 
The water flow is right to left that is correct.
The skimmers recommended water depth is 14 inches. If I decide to replace it with a new one in the future I will need to build some sort of a stand for it.
I am not sure if there will be enough room for water in case of a power outage. I am not sure how to go about testing such a thing. I was going to fill it up and hook up a mag 12 pushing water from the return to the skimmer section just to get an idea of the flow.
I did not think about making a bubble tower. I guess I was just going to have the water line dump directly into the skimmer area. Would that be a bad thing?
Thanks for your questions! I am trying to work out all of the kinks before I try to install this.
 
Rick, you need to figure out how much water will drain. For example, if your tank drains 1" of water, how much is that in gallons? So take the formula (L x W x H / 231 = to figure total gallons):

Length of tank in inches x Width of tank in inches x 1" (height) divided by 231 to figure out how many gallons that is. My tank is 72 x 30 x 1 / 231 = 9.4g for each inch that drains.

Anti-siphon holes help limit how much drains.

Now take your sump, and determine the length and width with the same formula to see how much 1" of space in the sump equals. For example, if the tank was 48 x 12, mathematically it would hold 2.5g for every inch of space. If my tank is going to drain 9.4g of water, the sump would have to have about 4" of available space to hold that water.

A bubble tower isn't critical. I was just asking. I think they help reduce microbubbles in a contained area.
 
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