Combo Sump/Fuge

[dan]

depending on the pump you are using for your main tank and the size of the fuge you may want to slow it down for your fuge. if you have a pump that's pumping 3 or 4 thousand gals in hour in your tank you don't want that running through your fuge. again depending on size 1 or 2 hundred per hour should be fine running the fuge.

[elm0]

Ok, I've been studying this subject for a while now. My question is if you get a descent sized fuge for your tank with the proper water flow and everything, then what is the purpose of having a sump at all, I mean won't the fuge serve the purpose of having larger water volume that the sump would, unless you just want that much more volume. Any other reasons to have a sump in addition to the fuge in this situation?

[prof]

Adding water volume creates a more stable system. 'Dilution is the solution to pollution' (Calfo)

Generally, a sump is used to hide filtration/dosing equipment. A refugium is a 'refuge' for livestock that can not or should not be sustained in the main tank.

You can always add something like a trash can or 5 gallon bucket under the stand. Fill it with macro and add a simple power compact bulb to light it. Pump water from the sump into the bucket and let the water overflow back into the sump. Any pump will work, ie...powerhead, and it just overflows into the sump so the risk of overflowing to the floor is low.

[ratboy]

I ran a baffled 20 gallon sump/fuge in my 90 running on a mag18. It worked great even though it broke the rules and had high flow thru the fuge. Macro and mangrove still grew quickly. With my 380 I converted the wet dry part of the filter that came with it into a proper low flow fuge. I split one of my 2 drains so a tiny bit of water bleeds into the "wetdry". I sealed the wet dry so it fills to about 9" deep. Im currently lighting it from the side but Im going to install my old PCs so I can light it from the top and put some lights in the main part of the sump and probably grow frags or zenia.

[NaCl_H2O]

The forgotten benefit of a "Sump" is that it provides variable water capacity. As evaporation occurs, the water level in the sump can drop without impacting inhabitants in the tank or fuge until your top off system (automated or manual) can correct the problem. Also, any small leak can be overcome by the reserve capacity in the sump. Finally, if setup correctly, the sump can provide capacity to hold water from the sytem that siphons back to the sump during a power outage.

[btacker]

I think that Elmo is saying that a fuge and serve all the purposed you are giving to a sump. I would say that if you wanted, you could get a smaller return pum and just use the entire sump as a fuge, but I think that most people are going to want to put their skimmer down there and should probably have more water flow to it than a fuge would want.

I had a problem spliting my drain line. My return water has a ton of micro bubbles in it and that was causing bubbles in my fuge so my macro would float, etc etc... anyway, I use a maxi jet 1200 to pump water into my fuge from my sump area.

You should be able to do this design in a 55 gallon tank pretty easily.