Sump Water level and the bubble trap

[gtoon159]

I am designing a new sump for my 90gal and my builder suggested a higher water lever than the outside baffles in the bubble trap. I had never thought about this until he suggested it and I am wondering why I wouldn't do it.

So for more detail the sump will be 13" high total the outer baffles are say 5" high and I will run the water level at 7"


Is this a good / bad or indifferent idea?


Thanks in advance.
George

[tdwyatt]

Why run the water at 7" ?

[gtoon159]

Couple of the reasons that came to my mind were.
1) increased water volume assuming the sump will still take the overflow from the tank in case of a power failure
2) moving the float for the top off out of the return section to the skimmer section.
3) less bubbles and or noise in that there is no water fall into the return section.

When bob showed me his sump it seemed to make alot of sense to me but it is contrary to the sumps Marc builds and different then what I thought I wanted.

So what do you think?

[tdwyatt]

Personaly I would run them with as much water as the sump will hold after 30 minutes without power (30 minutes because some overflows continue to leak water back into the sump, this will determine if this is a problem for you). I was more curious about why have 5" baffles and 7" water depth while running? Was this the original design, or was this due to oversight in the design planning?