Please critique and advise on my fuge plans

thangbom

thangbom

Active Member
from what you are planing it seem as you have things in reverse... should be skimmer left and return pump right ( you want the bubble baffle to be after your filter system and take the bubble out before it gets to the return pump) i would also make the return pump area only a little bit bigger than the return pump.. like 2.5'' bigger max ...
YzGyz
 
ameno

ameno

Active Member
on mine i have the fuge on one side and the skimmer on the other, and the sump in the middle with baffles before it gets to the pump. and make sure you have enough room in the sump to handle the amount of water that will overflow into the sump if the pump stops.
 
groupergenius

groupergenius

Active Member
Originally Posted by ThaNgBom
from what you are planing it seem as you have things in reverse... should be skimmer left and return pump right ( you want the bubble baffle to be after your filter system and take the bubble out before it gets to the return pump) i would also make the return pump area only a little bit bigger than the return pump.. like 2.5'' bigger max ...
YzGyz
That does seem to make more sense. Doh.
I was thinking reverse and keep the bubbles from the fuge area, but your suggestion is way better.
 
saltn00b

saltn00b

Active Member
hey grouper, i would heavily consider the three baffle technique on both sides. check out my plans / built fuge in my upgrade thread in this subforum. i consistantly hear about people building a sump and then battling a microbubble problem, so fight it before you run into one. i have reduced my microbubbles with my design.
 
ameno

ameno

Active Member
a couple of pluses to having it set up with the sump in the middle, you can control the amount of flow going to you skimmer and to the fuge. normal you want less flow thru your fuge. and you are not running thru the skimmer before the fuge, you bring water to the fuge directly from the DT.
 
thangbom

thangbom

Active Member
well your other design would still work.. just that you would have to flip it 180.. ( so as if we where looking at it on the other side )
i agree with the beat the bubble before rather than after but i dont think the triple baffle buble trap is always needed... as long as the baffles are not too tall as to have a waterfall crashing down and make bubbles then you may even get away with 2 baffle like your first pick... that and if your return pump pumps super a lot of gph.. thus moving the water so fast that the bubble never gets a chance to rise to the surface and pop... these are a few things that come up designing a sump/fuge... with a smaller tank used to make sump fuge... there tripple baffle are a must cuz bubble never get time to rise.. but, by adding baffles, you just made a small sump/fuge even smaller and perhaps rendering it useless...
but....... imo either of your design will suffice as long as the baffles arnt to high as to the water lvl that they dump into...
YzGyz
 
stdreb27

stdreb27

Active Member
what kind of return pump are you going to use, I have a 36 in tank and I with it was longer so I could get more flow through my system. I'd also go with 3 baffles on both sides. There isn't really any reason not too, and if you end up with microbubbles there is nothing more frustraiting that taking it all apart and re doing the whole dang thing.
 
sign guy

sign guy

Active Member
I would sujest droping the baffle that seperates your skimmer and fuge so that the water has a better chanse of tumbiling the chato
 
saltn00b

saltn00b

Active Member
one last thing i would recommend. the one thing i would change to my design:
the size of the final and lowest area where you have your return pump. dont under estimate the size of this area, as it represents the amount of time / water you have to evaporate before you need to top off again. so unless you have an RO / DI unit hooked up with an auto topoff, or you are going to over fill the fuge so that the water raises above the baffles, this is an important factor to take into thought. for example, mine only holds about 2.5 gallons of water before it starts spitting 02 bubbles in the DT. my tank evaporates almost exactly 2.5 gallons every 12 hours.... just a thought.
 
earlybird

earlybird

Active Member
Originally Posted by sign guy
I would sujest droping the baffle that seperates your skimmer and fuge so that the water has a better chanse of tumbiling the chato
I was going to suggest this also. That way the water would have to rise before it left the fuge and into the return chamber. If the baffles are at equal height it could just run over the top and out. Make sense?
 
groupergenius

groupergenius

Active Member
Ok, latest and greatest...maybe. The skimmer side has to be so big to accomodate the one I allready have. I just bought a new $130 motor for it so I'm using it.
The 6" at the top represents 13 gallons of extra in case of motor failure. The 2" between water line and spillover is 4.5 gallons. I have switches allready to do my DIY auto top off.
What else should I put in the fuge area besides 2" of LS, some LR, and Chaeto?
 
saltn00b

saltn00b

Active Member
i would put 3-4" of LS so that you have a DSB functioning in there. i have very small LR rubble in my fuge, as it is mostly filled with cheato, as well as some other macro algaes like halimeda, and grape culerpa and some other atlantic macros. i also threw in some blue leg hermits, some cerith snails and about 5 cleaner clams :)
 
groupergenius

groupergenius

Active Member
Originally Posted by saltn00b
i would put 3-4" of LS so that you have a DSB functioning in there. i have very small LR rubble in my fuge, as it is mostly filled with cheato, as well as some other macro algaes like halimeda, and grape culerpa and some other atlantic macros. i also threw in some blue leg hermits, some cerith snails and about 5 cleaner clams :)

DSB---Deep sand base??? I read somewhere about elevating the sand with eggcrate and screen. Does that sound reasonable?? OOhhh I think I might be on to something. Could be a very bad idea but revising the old Undergravel filter idea. Make the water pass thru the sand.
 
groupergenius

groupergenius

Active Member
Now I'm really gettin crazy. A low flow pump say 300-400gph instead of the 1200gph I was going to use. Plus it would seriously diminish the bubble problem.
Does this look like a Nitrate nightmare? I'm thinking since the flow will be constant, the trates might not have a chance to build up.
 
saltn00b

saltn00b

Active Member
thats not necessary, a DSB doesnt need to have the seperated section either, that is more for DT's so the bottom stuff doesnt get churned up accidentally. in the fuge everything stay pretty quiet. you will just need a moderate gentle flow over the top of it, which you will get naturally. if you saw in mine, i have my skimmer pump in the first chamber, the skimmer is elevated behind it, and then return water like PH into the fuge area, where i have a 2nd small PH to keep the water churning a little bit in there.
 
stdreb27

stdreb27

Active Member
Originally Posted by GrouperGenius
Now I'm really gettin crazy. A low flow pump say 300-400gph instead of the 1200gph I was going to use. Plus it would seriously diminish the bubble problem.
Does this look like a Nitrate nightmare? I'm thinking since the flow will be constant, the trates might not have a chance to build up.

I have a simular sized setup, I've been able to get about 900 gph, I think, sucessfully.
 
groupergenius

groupergenius

Active Member
Originally Posted by stdreb27
I have a simular sized setup, I've been able to get about 900 gph, I think, sucessfully.
But this design is pulling the water thru the sand. Are you doing that? I am thinking this will kill the bubble problem as well as super-filter the water for better clarity. Just not sure if it will create a nitrate problem. It's based on the old school UG filters I used years ago.
 
earlybird

earlybird

Active Member
Not sure if that will work. Maybe if you have really slow flow with a smaller return. I think most of the water will go over that baffle rather than the water being filtered through the sand. If the flow over that baffle is strong enough it could back up under the sand and reverse the flow causing a sand storm. I dunno.
If it did work you'd probably have to have pretty coarse sand and probably couldn't get away with a DSB.
 
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