apos
Member
I have a 55 gal with a sump which uses a Mag (75?) to return the water from an overflow box. The return piping feeds into a pvc "rim" that goes around the top of the tank and has holes drilled in five places (the rim is not a full circle, since it is capped off at two of the ends to allow room for the overflow box to sit in one corner)
I was wondering if anyone has any opinions on this setup, re flow or other concerns. It seems to do a decent job of spreading out flow throughout the tank, but sometimes I wonder if it prevents particles in the water column from settling on the surface and then going into the overflow for filtration.
I also wonder if a T shaped return piped down lower in the back of the tank (i.e. just two openings shooting off in either direction along the back of the tank) wouldn't be better for creating a more consistent flow, especially lower in the tank where I fear there may be snail killing dead spots.
I unfortunately have crushed coral, so this is a major concern. The piping setup also seems to make the substrate uneven: i.e. there are places where I have several inches of CC, and some places in the back where I'm basically bare bottom.
Some more downsides to this setup are:
1) it makes adding things that hang on the rim of the tank, like clips or HOB fuges a pain, because it essentially makes the rim much wider
2) when I turn off my pump and back on again, there are big blasts of air due to the pvc's siphon action. This may in some ways be an upside, because since the return holes basically are at the same level as the overflow box, they cannot keep siphoning the water out of the tank: i.e. no floods I could probably try to work in a check valve somewhere in the piping, but it would be a major pain to add.
I was wondering if anyone has any opinions on this setup, re flow or other concerns. It seems to do a decent job of spreading out flow throughout the tank, but sometimes I wonder if it prevents particles in the water column from settling on the surface and then going into the overflow for filtration.
I also wonder if a T shaped return piped down lower in the back of the tank (i.e. just two openings shooting off in either direction along the back of the tank) wouldn't be better for creating a more consistent flow, especially lower in the tank where I fear there may be snail killing dead spots.
I unfortunately have crushed coral, so this is a major concern. The piping setup also seems to make the substrate uneven: i.e. there are places where I have several inches of CC, and some places in the back where I'm basically bare bottom.
Some more downsides to this setup are:
1) it makes adding things that hang on the rim of the tank, like clips or HOB fuges a pain, because it essentially makes the rim much wider
2) when I turn off my pump and back on again, there are big blasts of air due to the pvc's siphon action. This may in some ways be an upside, because since the return holes basically are at the same level as the overflow box, they cannot keep siphoning the water out of the tank: i.e. no floods I could probably try to work in a check valve somewhere in the piping, but it would be a major pain to add.
But it's not really that complicated, I'm probably over explaining.