Blake,
A fellow reefer emailed me last week with a bunch of similar questions, some of which pertain to my particular sump. It can be seen here
www.shadetree.homestead.com/index.html Here is the email:
I will try my best to summarize it for you here. If the tank is not drilled, you have to install Hang On Overflow boxes to drain water from the display tank into your sump/refugium.
http://www.reefland.com/shopping/overflowsupport.htm is worth reading. Rick O has given a good picture of an overflow. The Box with the teeth is mounted in the tank at the desired water level, the middle of the teeth will approximately be the final water level. Water enters the box and is then sucked up and through the U tube. On the reefland site it explains how the U tube siphon is started. Properly constructed overflows will not lose siphon during a power outage, so there is no need to worry about the U tubes not working once they are started properly. The U tubes then empty into a chamber on the outside box. this chamber keeps the end of the tube submerged at all times, even during a power outage, which is why they keep their siphon. The water then spills over into the larger chamber where a bulkhead is located. The water then goes through this bulkhead down into the sump or refugium. The water noise from this area is very loud, if you check out
http://www.rl180reef.com/frames.htm and
http://home.att.net/~rstockman/overflow.htm you will find designs for standpipes that will eliminate almost all the noise here. I personally have two standpipes based on the second link in use. From the overflow box, the water then travels down into the sump. The best way to eliminate bubbles and noise from the water entering the sump is to have the returns enter from the side and below the water surface. I have added a few more pics to my sump page at the very bottom of pvc elbows that weren't in the other pictures. On my equipment page I have added a picture of my pump and its plumbing. The return pump will determine the water turnover in the tank. The pump should be based on the size of tank, the height of the return plumbing, how many restrictions are on the return plumbing such as elbows and turns. It is recommended to turn the water over anywhere from 8-20 times in a reef tank. The Quiet One, the Dolphin SST series and Iwakis pumps are all excellent quality pumps worth checking out. I prefer
external pumps for the ease of maintenance, and the higher water flows. The stronger the return pump, the higher the water level in the tank and lower in the sump. Or a weaker pump will lower the water level in the tank and increase the water level in the sump. When building a sump, make sure that it can handle the excess water from the main tank during a power outage and provide enough room for all your equipment. The water that is above the teeth in the inside overflow box that will drain, then your returns will back siphon unless there is a break in them. If they are not submerged, they will not back siphon. My return on the right is placed right at the water surface so that if power goes out, there will be no back siphon. jjdog on
www.reefcentral.com right now has a thread on tank returns that might be worth looking at. There plumbing is all up to personal preference. One note, when plumbing do not be shy about using a lot of unions and valves. They allow you to close the plumbing and easily disassemble it for future upgrades or maintenance. You can see a number in my plumbing, most noticeably before and after the return pump. The skimmer is another story all together. I will let you do the searching on the boards for what size and kind, but I do recommend an in
sump skimmer with in sump pumps. Skimmers can overflow and with the exception of the ETS, Bullets and a few others when used with their autowaste collectors. But for a piece of mind, I put mine in the sump, if it decides to overflow when I am not home, the water will simply overflow in the sump with no mess. The only real advice is to send good money and get a top quality skimmer from the start. Maybe even get one that could handle a much larger tank, if you decide to upgrade in the future, which seems to be a common occurence in this hobby, your $250-600 skimmer will still be good for you. When placing the skimmer in the system, just be sure to place the return of it away from the return outlet for your pump, so that any bubbles that do escape the skimmer have at least some distance to travel and some baffles to dissapte them. For some great pictures and ideas check out
http://www.lifereef.com/custom.html There are some awesome setups on this page. If you decide to buy an overflow, despite the higher cost I would recommend a Lifereef. He seems to make very high quality equipent that all his customers seems extremely happy with them. The sumps are much more expensive then DIY or most other places, but I really do think you get what you pay for here. Hopefully this clears some things up for you, let me know if there is anything that doesn't make sense or if there is something in particular you need a picture of.
Hopefully some answers are buried in there somewhere for you.
Scott
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