Sump Layout

[Tiz]

Hello, I've just joined for some advice. I'm helping my parents with designing a new marine setup. They've had a tank 30+ years and just broken it down to replace the tank (seams getting very dodgy). They were just running it on an external eheim filter but are keen to swap to a sump. We will be getting a custom tank so it fits the space they have (sump needs to be offset) as there isn't room under the tank. The sump space is approx 80cmx45cm and needs to fit a top up, skimmer, and they'd like a refugium. We're struggling on the best way to lay it out. I keep freshwater so none of us have sump experience. This is our draft, are we on the right track or is there a better option? Thanks!

 

[Sean Clark]

Hello, I've just joined for some advice. I'm helping my parents with designing a new marine setup. They've had a tank 30+ years and just broken it down to replace the tank (seams getting very dodgy). They were just running it on an external eheim filter but are keen to swap to a sump. We will be getting a custom tank so it fits the space they have (sump needs to be offset) as there isn't room under the tank. The sump space is approx 80cmx45cm and needs to fit a top up, skimmer, and they'd like a refugium. We're struggling on the best way to lay it out. I keep freshwater so none of us have sump experience. This is our draft, are we on the right track or is there a better option? Thanks!

I would either enlarge the skimmer section like the photo below or switch the skimmer and refugium sections. 20cm is going to be pretty tight to fit most modest sized skimmers comfortably. Other than that I think the layout is nice.
How large is the display going to be?

 

[Koh23]

Nowdays is very modern and popular to have gazilion baffles, cutouts, chambers, all of them are visualy appealing, but.....

Old school sump, two or three chambers, flat line....still works the best....

First chamber is where water comes in sump. Filter socks on holder if u use them. Second chamber is skimmer/fuge section, and last one is for return pump.

Eventualy you can separate skimmer from refugium section, if u have enough space...

I like to have small chamber where drain pipes come in, serves for settling all of the stuff before it goes into socks or further in sump, its easy to vacuum when needed, keeps rest of sump cleaner....

 

[Tiz]

I would either enlarge the skimmer section like the photo below or switch the skimmer and refugium sections. 20cm is going to be pretty tight to fit most modest sized skimmers comfortably. Other than that I think the layout is nice.
How large is the display going to be?

Thank you! The display will be 120cmx50cmx50cm

We've picked up the skimmer (to check sizes) and it will fit (18cm wide) but having thought about what you said I'm going to remeasure and see if we can make the whole sump 2cm longer just to give us the extra space incase we change it out in future.

Nowdays is very modern and popular to have gazilion baffles, cutouts, chambers, all of them are visualy appealing, but.....

Old school sump, two or three chambers, flat line....still works the best....

We are limited by length otherwise one after the other would have been my preference. I feel like very narrow chambers one of the after will be harder to clean/fit equipment than the slightly more complicated side by side. The settling chamber makes sense though and we could certainly do that under the pipes as it comes in.