Refugium

[jabels5]

I have a 72 bow front with soft corals and some fish, I want to mod my refug and sump. Right now the overflow goes in a 30 gal short, with a 10 gal sitting inside the 30, the protien skimmer dumps into the 10 and it overflows back into the 30 and the return pump is on the far side of the 30. I would like to turn the 30 into a refug system with out the 10 inside it, but my question is how do I know how high to make the dividers, and should the overflow run into the refug or a chamber with the skimmer then the refug, then the return area. Or should I just look into buying one pre made. Should the refug have a cover on it to limit evaporation, I lose almost 1 gal of water a day. I am fairly new to this so if I ask dumb questions please forgive me. Any help is very welcome. Also if some one will tell me how to upload pics, I can post a pic of the set I have. Thank you in advance.

 

[tschubert]

I am not an expert, but I built my own using a 55 gallon with 3 chambers, Fuge, middle with skimmer in it and return on the other end. I have 2 returns, one going into the fuge, and the other going into the middle chamber with the skimmer....both cranking abbout 2000 gallons per hour....lots of turbulence....so I put in a baffle between the middle and last or return chamber to help settle things down prior to return pumps.
Go to melevesreef.com for a lot of good stuff here.