Series or parallel plumbing?

C

chrisk

2 months ago, I bought an established '100 gallon' (actually 80) tank from a guy who needed to get rid of it. I'm currently experiencing a crash course in saltwater reef care. Fun and stressfull.

2 months and 1 week ago I finally got my emtpy 120 gallon tank drilled (4holes in the bottom - 2in, 2out). Yay!! The plan is to move everything from 100gallon to 120 gallon once I get 120 gallon all plumbed out and use 100 gallon as fresh. Anyways... the 100 gallon has a backpack overflow going to a ~25 gallon wet/dry and then pumped back into the tank.

When I move to the new tank, I'm hoping to add a refugium (made from one of my spare 25 gallon tall tanks) to the setup but I'm unsure how the sump will get water to the refugium.

I was thinking that I'd pipe all the water to the sump first, then somehow get the water to the refugium where I would pump it back into the tank. So, everything would be in series. Is this a good idea or should it be in parallel instead?

Thanks Chris
 
With two inputs and two outputs, I would send one tank drain line to the sump, and then T the other to go to the fuge and sump, that way you can control how much water travel through the fuge. I would drain from the fuge to the sump and let both returns be in the sump.
 
I have a seperate refugium and I have one of two drain lines "T" off w/ a ball valve to control flow to reguge. It will be easy for you w/ the 25 tall because you can put an output that is near the top and will gravity feed into the sump, which will be lower. You can use a 90 degree elbow pointing up into refuge to drain to sump.
 
hrmm... maybe I should just use the 40 that we have and use that for everything instead...

so many choices... so little knowledge

btw, on that link you sent, on your diagram, what are the 'vents' for on the input lines?
 
And just to really confuse the issue, there's the way I have my fuge's plumbed in... I just can't do anything the "normal" way...

IF the tank you're gonna be using for a fuge is drilled or drillable, most of my 'fuge's are on a bookshelf ABOVE the main tank. I have a small powerhead hooked to flexible tubing in an overflow on the main tank, and this pumps water UP to the fuges, and then the 'fuge's are drilled, and flow back DOWN to the tank. The advantage of this is that since the fuge's drain back to the tank via gravity rather than via a pump, more of the life makes it to the tank alive and not as sliced up 'pod pieces... (The disadvantage being, of course, that there's another pump, more electricity, etc, being used)

Not saying you should do it this way, as my way is not the "norm", just thowing out another way of doing it...
 
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