new 200 gallon in the wall setup. have a few questions

[justin s]

well i am not really a newbie to saltwater but am a newbie to large tanks. i have had a 55 gallon reef for about 8 years but it was nothing like i plan on setting up. i just built my house, and i purchased a 200 gallon tank years ago that i am finally gonna setup. i have never had a sump or overflows or anything like that but i want to set it up so everything is plumbed and will make it easier in the long run. i have a basement below the tank also. i have been searching and reading, but it seems alot of the posts especially the older ones have had images removed. are there any good books anyone could reccomend that would help explain the process of setting up a large tank. i have read alot but sometimes diagrams or pictures help alot. if anyone knows of any threads that still have pictures or diamgrams that could be helpful too. for now i will keep searching. thanks.
Justin

 

[deejeff442]

here was mine a while back. the sump had macro on the right ,some rock rubble on the left and a biopellet reactor .

 

[justin s]

thank you deejeff. that is a beautiful setup. its just hard to find out if you are setting it up right but im sure i will get it figured out. i know sump is the way to go. just a lot of reading. how do you figure out what the best setup is. i always see pople saying to set the sump of this way, then others say to do it different. is there a basic flow that you want to make sure to follow?

 

[geridoc]

justin: Having gone sumpless and sumped over the years, I have to tell you that a sump is just easier all around. Much of your equipment is hidden from sight, maintenance is easier and that means that it gets done more often, leading to better water conditions. I think the most important thing to remember when designing a sump system is that if you are married and want to keep it that way, be sure to design in siphon breaks so that the system won't flood from reverse flow from the display into the sump in the event of a power outage. Do not rely on one-way valves: they will work fine until they are needed, when they invariably fail. Why this is so, I don't know, but I know that the gods of fishkeeping guarantee the failure of one-way valves. I have a 220 system in my living room with two in-tank overflows. I have flexible hose running to the under-tank sump. The sump has two bioball chambers, each with a particulate filter leading into it. The common plenum below these chambers leads to a common chamber which has the skimmer and skimmer pump, the return pump, the chiller pump and a pump to the algae scrubber, which is located outside of the cabinet due to room space constraints. The return line splits into two hoses, each in turn leading to a return at opposite ends of the display tank. The nozzles for the return function as siphon breaks by having them close to the surface. The overflows are protected by durso tubes at the top of the elbow that turns down towards the sump. If I had more space under the tank, or if I had planned better by putting the sump in the basement, then I would not have the algae scrubber, but would have an additional chamber in the sump for macroalgae - I can't say enough about the advantages of having either algae or macroalgae (really the same thing) carrying out nutrient export).