Plumbing / Sump Design / refugium Questions

[Ram_Puppy]

I am playing around in paint, trying to lay out my new tank/sump/refugium. (reading joshuas thread gave me some insights)

Anyhow, right now the flow goes something like this:

Tank -> UV Sterilizer -> Sump -> Calcium Reactor -> Skimmer -> Next Chamber in Sump -> Refugium -> Tank

I don't plan on running the UV full time, it is plumbed in incase of emergency.

I put the Calc reactor before the Skimmer so any excess C02 (if any) can be driven out of the water by the agitation in the skimmer. (Is this a good idea?)

This is hard to imagine in your head but I recently read an article about 'upside down' sand beds. the idea is that your sump flows into your refugiums through a set of baffels, but rather than flowing over the last baffle, it flows under. There is a two inch gap between the bottom of the tank, and an egg crate/vinyl screen layer that holds up a sand bed consisting of crushed coral first and southdown above that the water flows all the way to the end of the refugium where it channels up through a couple of pipes into the refugium proper. The benefit of this, is increased water movement through the sand bed, creating TWO aerobic surfaces, with an anerobic surface sandwiched in-between them, in addition to greater water flow through the substrate. UP on the upper surface of course is where yoru Chaeto grows. I plan on seperating the refugium into sections with egg crate to keep my Chaeto, Botryocladia, and Ochtodes seperated, I don't thing that should effect flow much. The return would be back towards the baffle that seperates the refugium and the sump. (confused yet?). I will probably put a divider of egg crate up here as well and fill with either submerged bio balls or live rock rubble to create yet another cryptic zone for critters to breed in, and keep the macro algae from getting into the return pump.

The tank this will be serving is a 30X30X30 cube (116.8 Gallons) will have approximately 100 LBS of Tonga in it (in addition to the rubble in the fuge) and a 3 to 6" DSB with a plenum (no arguments of DSB's please).

Closed loop Oceans motions 4 way and the return pump are both Iwaki MD-70RLT 1500 GPH pumps.

Also, somewhere in here, I would like to put in a Carbon Media Reactor, but I am not sure where, before the fuge seems like wasting carbon, after the fuge seems like it might trap pods and what not, eventually causing a flow issue (even if 'T'd off like I would like it... I am thinking before the fuge is still probably the best place.

Oh, and right now, I am thinking I may make a pretty large sump/fuge... I am planning on building it into the side of a entertainment center I have been planning, so I can probably exceed the 30" footprint of the tank.

[matt]

It's a little more complicated than that; you need differing amounts of wtaer going to the reactor and skimmer, for example. I'm sure you understand that a calcium reactor gets only a tiny through-flow, not all of your flow, correct?

In general, it's a good idea to drip the reactor effluent near the skimmer input, but in a well adjusted set up it's not necessary. In general it's also a good idea to have the skimmer input and output from the same chamber in the sump, before baffles. This results in a net zero affect on the flow of your system, and as long as the water's moving well, you won't be "reskimming" sump water.

[GaryP]

Ram,

I don't really see the benefit of the "upside down" sand bed. The purpose of a DSB id to create an area of low oxygen for bacteria that complete the nitrogen cycle. That sounds like an oxygenated plenum, or something like a fluidized bed.

If you want to create more oxygenated area, just add a wet/dry. A wet/dry would be a lot less complicated than what you are describing.

Gary

[Ram_Puppy]

Thanks Guys, feedback is what I want.

Matt, I THINK that I knew that about varying flows, but for some reason i think my brain continually strives to over simplify plumbing, it is a daunting task. so do calcium reactors typically come with a very small pump?

Gary, that is what I thought, but according to this article, and you have to understand, we are talking a minimum 8 inches here, and in the article the author shows a 55 gallon tank converted to this methedology with a sandbed that must be at least a foot thick, maybe more. SUPPOSEDLY, you do get your anarobic zone, sandwiched between the two aerobic zones top and bottom, there is more flow, but since water does have a free passage into the upper chamber, it is definately not fluidizing the sandbed. the trick is, to balance the flow through the refugium fast enough to keep detrius from accumulating, but slow enough not to transport anarobic material to the surface of the sand bed...

ok, back after 15 minutes... had to find the magazine... It is the 2005 Marine Fish and Reef annual magazine,, the one that has a pair of gorgeous blue mandarins on the front.

THe article is called sump improvement by Dr. Charles Maththews, and starts on pg 116.

I have always thought about having a a reef rubble bed, and a sand bed suspended above that to increase my surface area before and when I saw this, I just thogut... that makes sense... but you know, it may not... if you would like to borrow the magazine, I can meet you someplace later this week.

thanks for all your imput guys, I greatly appreciate it.

[GaryP]

I would have to be a pretty big tank to be able to give up over 12" of vertical space. That would be over half of my 125 gal tank. In my refugium it would be nothing but sand. I can see Dan's reaction when I asked him to build me an acrylic refugium that could handle that much pressure without exploding.

I get the idea now. I guess that would be OK if it was a refugium dedicated as a sand bed. The other problem is that all the fine material generated by a DSB settles to the bottom. It would take a very fine screen to prevent that stuff from getting into the lower flow channel. You have the same problem with a plenum. I'd like to see one of these things. I guess I'm just throwing out a lot of what if's at this point, without seeing it in action.

Gary

[NaCl_H2O]

A few random thoughts:

Maybe experementing with DSBs would be more easily accomplished in your Fuge?
Agree w/Matt on running your skimmer out of the same sump chamber, and his comments on Ca Reactors, although my experience here is only beginning.
With a good setup excess CO2 shouldn't be a problem, but the best defense will be good water movement at the surface for gas exchange.
Your UV should be feed fairly "clean" water, after the skimmer if possible. Then again, water doesn't really flow from one piece of equipment to the other, mostly in/out of the sump from various stages of "Cleanliness".

In general it takes some careful planning. Pumping massive amounts of water in & out of a sump from various locations can result in some surprising water levels. I think I have a very complex filter/sump system which I planned & Re-planned many times - and I still had a "awe ****" or two I had to fix.

- Steve

[GaryP]

The other question I came up with is why bother? How many mature tanks have a problem with high nitrates/nitirites? That would be the main advantage of this sort of system, nitrate/nitrite reduction.

I do like the idea of active flow through a gravel bed though. That seems like it would have good biological activity in a small area. Again, this would be along the same lines of a wet/dry without the oxygenating effect of "trickling". Of course there is no reason why you couldn't replace bioballs with LR rubble in a wet/dry.

If I could ever figure out how to do it effectively, I would like to figure out how to build a tank with a spreader bar running through the rockscape of my main tank. I've done it before, but the problem was that the openings in the spreader plugged off with debris and scale build up. It was impossible to remove the bar for maintenancee without tearing apart the rockscape.

Gary

[Ram_Puppy]

dangit, I posted a reply to this hours ago and it has up and dissapeared... oh well.


Steve, we are talking about a fuge! ;)


Gary, I think I agree, what's the point. I stayed up for hours today (i work nights, sleep days) turning this idea over in my head trying to weigh the pro's and con's as well as my amature mind can, and I came up with a few thoughts.

1) this design does not adhere to the KISS principle, and therefore, must not be used.
2) I plan on curing my live rock in the tank itself when it arrives, and the fuge will allready be up and running, it will be neccessary to have the ability to turn some ball valves and cut the fuge out of the loop so as not to shock it into a nasty mess. This requires the fuge being a seperate container.

3) If my wife indeed does sign off (or I ambush her with it) on me building an entertainment center around this sucker, why do I have to have my fuge under the tank? everyone agreed that gravity fed return from a fuge is best... and in an entertainment center, I can EASILY move it off to the side and all my concerns about heat from the halides is no longer an issue. YAY.

My one demand on my fuge is a heavy pod population, this can be accomplished very simply by putting piles of rubble in the tank, and in the fuge, no need for anything fancier.

Thanks guys...