opinions wanted on my sump idea

[khaosinc]

so while I've been waiting on various things to arrive so I can actually have something besides tapwater in my tank, I've been playing with various designs for my DIY sump/fuge idea. Being a bit of a newbie to saltwater, I wanted some other opinions.
The tank is 210 gallons, the sump is being built out of a 100 gallon acryllic tank thats rather beat up but structurally sound. The center part is being built out of a large wet dry filter that has a nasty crack in the bottom, but no bioballs being used. I'm still undeceided about filter floss, but plan on leaving the 'drawer' in for now.
Not shown in the pic is a skimmer, I have an external system for a 500 gallon tank coming, but I haven't seen it yet, so I'm not sure how its going to fit in to everything yet. My thought was to have it just pull out of and return to the "pump" area. I may have to flip sides of everything if it won't fit under my tank.
My thought is to use the left side as a fuge, and the right side for heaters,pumps and equipment. The center would be various live rock, and whatever ends up there, looked like a good place for crabs. My tank has 2 overflows so having the input in the center seemed to make sense. I suspect the pumps I have (mag 18's) can easily out pull the overflows in my tank, and I might rig it to alternate between them to change up flow in the tank. (not to mention a back up is always nice.) I thought the eggcrate might be nice to keep everything seperate, especally if I have crabs, and maybe need to seperate a fish sometime.
heres a pic, as I know I don't describe things well. PS the gray lines are the remains of the wet dry filter.

 

[jdl]

Why not have the water flow through your entire sump? Water enter left or right, fuge in center, return opposite side of entry.

 

[khaosinc]

my thought was to have a seperate pump run the fuge so I could keep the waters a little calmer. I wanted to be able to have a sand bed in there, but wanted to keep the sand out of my pump.

 

[jdl]

Originally Posted by Khaosinc
http:///forum/post/2804277
my thought was to have a seperate pump run the fuge so I could keep the waters a little calmer. I wanted to be able to have a sand bed in there, but wanted to keep the sand out of my pump.
I dont think you'll have any issues with sand going into your pump. Plus you'll want fast moving water for your fuge for your chaeto.
with your picture, how do you get water to pass in / out of the fuge?

 

[jimmy40741]

I would wonder about the flow through the fuge also, seems like the water there would be stagnent. But you did say that you were thinking of using a seperate pump for the fuge, so that would work. Another option would be to T off of one of your return pumps with a ball valve between it and the outlet in your fuge. You could regulate the amount of flow to your fuge by the ball valve (that's how mine is set up) and you wouldn't have to buy another pump or worry about maintaining it.
I would re-think the eggcrate also. The way you have it drawn what is going to keep the sand from your fuge from flowing into the center chamber and then into the retrun chamber? You mentioned crabs in your center chamber, but I'd be worried that they would get through the eggcrate and into the other chambers. Perhaps a better option would be a short piece of glass on the bottom then eggcrate on top of that. Or like I did, a short baffle topped with a gutter guard. I found a gutter guard at Lowes with a groove in it that attaches to your gutter and it fits perfectly on the glass, and it also has a fine mesh so water can pass through but not the snails in my fuge.