20 gallon sump bulid

flower

Well-Known Member
Hi, Welcome to the site.
I hated my Coralife skimmer...I gave it away. I love the Octopus 1000sss cone skimmer I replaced it with. Tunz is the best brand I believe but it costs more. The Octopus sells for just under $300.00
The Coraslife I had was a HOB or in sump...believe me, it was not worth the $250.00 I paid for it. Microbubbles went everywhere, it was 25 inches tall and the cup had to be screwed on...it had to sit just perfect or it leaked and floaded. It took a month to skim 1/8 into the cup.
The Octopus I put in the sump...adjusted the knob to bring up a little foam and it skims pulling out thick almost black dark green gunk. It did take it a week or so to break in. The cup lifts right off and is a breeze to clean, I have had it over a year and not one days grief.
 
S

saxman

Guest
I agree on the cone skimmers...good stuff there.
As for commenting on your design, don't be lazy...make your dwg easily accessible for those who may be helping you. Don't make us chase one site to another, and THEN have it be a site you HAVE to sign up on.
 

snakeblitz33

Well-Known Member
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's an "illegal" link on this website... since it takes you to another forum. I am not going to sign up to look at your design. Sorry.
Anyways, I disagree with Flower about Coralife skimmers. They are great if you know how to set them up and use a little common sense. But, I also think that you shouldn't run a skimmer unless you have a fish only tank. If you plan on having any corals then go skimmerless and set up a turf algae scrubber.
 

aaronwilcox

New Member
I put the link to another page because for some reason it wont let me attach my design. "I don't have permission?" How do I get permission to attach my design.
 

al&burke

Active Member
Have a look at this design it is bigger than your 20 gallon but it gives you an idea on how it can be set up.
 

snakeblitz33

Well-Known Member
Why do you have a relief pipe from your return pump? It's not necessary unless you really don't want to throttle back your return pump. Some people have criticized the use of a protein skimmer after a refugium because they believe that it skims copepods out of the tank. Make sure you have enough water to cover the return pump... and it looks like you are going to have to top off that sump quite often unless you are going to add an auto top off unit to it. Other then that, it looks pretty good.
 

acrylic51

Active Member
Snake easy on the "modding"!!!! There's enough 50's in town. I don't think the linking would actually apply here or it shouldn't as in other instances.
To the OP your design could be construed as flawed, but there is no real right or wrong way to set it up, but some designs are more efficient as pointed out by Snake and Al. Al design utilizes space to the max and very efficient and works. I don't know if theirs any hard proof that the skimmer would pull all or some of your pods. Possible to pull some yes..... The utilization of media trays in the original design isn't efficient. You get more out of it by forcing water through your media vs the water flowing over top of it.
As far as dumping excess flow from pump back to sump is perfectly fine and still done. You should be mindful that you don't want it massively turbulent in the skimmer section as it could affect skimmer performance. A better use of extra flow from a return pump would be to feed media reactors if you desire to run carbon and such.
 

snakeblitz33

Well-Known Member
BTW, if I had a 20g sump to re-do and had the time - I would sooo set up a horizontal turf algae scrubber in it - it would just simplify everything. :D
 

aaronwilcox

New Member


Is this design better?
I made the skimmer area a little smaller, pump area bigger and got rid of the one piece of piping.
The skimmer I am heavily leaning toward is the
Reef Octopus 4" Pinwheel In Sump Skimmer OCT NWB110

its dimensions are 10? x 6.75? x 19.75? so it should fit in the area. I know nothing about skimmers. What should the water level be at? I was thinking around 11in and if it needed to be lower I could put it on a stand of some kind.
What type of return pump would someone suggest. I plan on running an overflow into the sump at about 400-500 gph. Is that ok? Would 1 inch PVC be ok for my plumbing?
I'm a noob I know,
please comment
 

acrylic51

Active Member
Once you have your skimmer choice narrowed down as it appears you have, your skimmer space looks good....Might have to angle or maneuver the skimmer, but should fit....I see you gave yourself a little extra room.....The baffle heights should be 9-10"......this will set your water height for your skimmer......Not exactly sure what the operating water depth would be, but assume between 6"-8" depth.....I would probably cut my baffle to 9", but before making the actual cut list I'd do a little searching and see what most are running their skimmers as......
I would cut an 1" off my fuge, and give yourself the extra room in the return pump area....You have to remember the return area is a bit more vital than maximizing the fuge to a degree.....An affect fuge doesn't have to be huge, but you also have to consider your pump choices....Eheim, and maybe Al or Corey, or better yet Flower could refresh my memory on the pump we chose for her sump build......Mag is another alternative as well.....I like to leave myself room in the return chamber as well for heaters and what not......
Overall the design looks good, but it all comes down to what do you want......
 

2quills

Well-Known Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by aaronwilcox http:///t/387474/20-gallon-sump-bulid#post_3409989
what is horizontal turf algae scrubber
I like your last design choice. I'm going with the same design. Instead of a refugium I'll be running a algae scrubber. It looks something like this. It will have lights on either side aimed right at the screen and a pump pumping water like a waterfall down the screen. What it does is grow algae like crazy on the screen thus helping to keep undesireable algae out of the display tank and lower nutrient levels. When they're done right, they can be a stand alone filtration device.
Sorry I don't have a pic of it running yet. But if you search out algae scrubbers you'll find all kinds of hits to check out.


BTW, they don't really call them Algae Turf Scrubbers anymore, they just call them Algae Scrubbers. Since turf algae is no longer the desired type of algae to achieve. Green hair algae is now what folks are shooting for. Better for nutrient export. Just a little FYI.
 

aaronwilcox

New Member
Final Design.....THANKS for all the input, still don't know what kind of pump to get or what lights to use on the Algae Scrubber
 
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