Aquarius Marinus

Good Afternoon fellow Reef Addicts.

I mentioned last week that I would be writing about my sump placement at some point in the future. I like to experiment with sumps and equipment, I love refugiums, the idea of experimenting with cryptic zones or algae turf scrubbers, so I really didn't like the idea of trying to cram everything in the stand under the 24" x 24" aquarium stand. It's also harder to access and clean the equipment under there. I am extremely annoyed by salt creep, so anything I can do here to make it easier on myself, the better it will be for my blood pressure in the future. Half of my basement is unfinished, and I would like to finish off a small room down there that will have my sump/refugium/RO/DI etc. That half is all bare at this point so anything goes!

Part of my initial reasoning for wanting to do a basement sump was that it was a similar set up to what I had with my 180, so I had some equipment left over such as a Blueline HD70 return pump and 100gal Rubbermaid stock container. The sump area for my 180 was directly underneath the tank. In this house, it will have to be over about 12-14 feet from the tank because I can't put the equipment room in the finished area of the basement (which is directly under the tank).

Using the head loss calculator, flow at that distance with the HD70 would be around 1000 GPH. A lot more than I'd like. What are some opinions on what is optimal? Should I Have different flow around the skimmer or refugium or do I want the same slowish flow around all the equipment so that the water has time to be processed?

Aside from the high flow, the HD70 draws 290W. That was about right for my 180, since I needed the turnover, but if I were to buy an HD40 that would put me around 350 GPH and only draw 120W. That's more than halving my electricity cost...about $468 a year for the HD70 vs $193 a year for the HD40.

Here is a rough Sketchup of my layout...(early stages...click so you can see it a little better)



The tank is in the corner upstairs, with a PVC return line down to the pump. I haven't drawn the drain line yet. I have a 100g stock container and a 40g baffled sump right now. I am thinking about doing a large refugium in the stock container and putting the skimmer and heaters in the 40g. I'm going to have a manifold with at least three or for adjustable outputs, carbon, biopellets or GFO?, anything else I might add. As I mentioned above I'd like to leave plenty of room to add other sump components. It is also very possible that there will be additional tanks served by this system in the future.

I only have one drain line with this tank. In my last tank (two drain lines) I had one feed the refugium, one feed the skimmer/reactor area, and they both collected in the return area. I don't know how I feel about splitting the output of the drain line. If I don't split it, would it be better to have the skimmer first or the refugium first? I know we generally accept that the return pump doesn't keep pods from getting to the DT, but in theory would it be better to have the skimmer before the 'fuge?

Looking forward to your suggestions!