sump building 101

[Melonbob]

I blew a shift at work today, cause I'm crazy that way, and I'm sitting here looking at my sump. Heres a few things to note. It has a hole drilled in the back, about 4" from top of tank, with a 1.5 bulkhead. Now I'm thinkin of plumbling one of my drains there, instead of just plopping it in the top. This would allow me to have more room for overflow in case of a power failure. But that would add two 90's to that one drain line, so should I just cap it?

[yote]

Those 90s wont hurt anything on the drain.Your not worried about head pressure there.So I'd plum it in and use it.

[Melonbob]

Next question. I need an 11.5X13.5 footprint for my skimmer, My tank is 15 wide, so I was thinking 15x15 would make it big enough with a bit of wiggle room. I noticed some people make their baffle for the fuge higher than the one for the skimmer? Also, how big should the area be for the return. My tank is 45 long, so take away 15 for the skimmer area, I'm left with 30" How much of that should I make into a fuge, and would having the return area in the centre be just as good as having the skimmer dump into the fuge, then dump into the return.

Oh and for that matter, the baffle from fuge to return, does it have to have teeth? I am getting glass cut way cheaper than buying acrylic, but I'm wondering what to do about teeth.

[RyanG]

Dont worry about teeth. I would split the difference and give the last 30 inches in equal parts to the fuge and the return. All of your evaporation will be noticed in the return section and you wont want it too run dry.

[Melonbob]

Can I make the baffle for the fuge higher than the one for the skimmer? say 14" for fuge height, and 12 for skimmer?

[RyanG]

You will have to have a pump to keep it full like a maxi-jet

[Melonbob]

huh? you lost me completely there

[RyanG]

with the center section being the return section and the fuge section having a taller baffle the water wont get inthere without a pump unless you have one of the overflows go into the fuge.

[Melonbob]

Thats the plan, one drain to fuge, one to skimmer, and return in the middle. So there would be no problem with the fuge being deeper?

[ccCapt]

How are you building the sump? Where is the return section....in the middle or on the end? Do you have a pic of your sump?
If you have the return pump in a middle section (which I personally don't like), you can have 1 drain going into the skimmer section and 1 going into the fuge section. The baffles can be different heights. What I don't like about this setup is it limits the amount of water in the return area and the water level can only be as high as your lowest baffle.
If you have the return on the end, the drain can dump into the skimmer section which can be made as small as needed to fit the skimmer. The baffles here are the only 1's you need. The rest of the sump can be divided by eggcrate to seperate the fuge from the pump.
FYI....most skimmers run best in 8-10" of water. If you make your baffles 12" high, you will need to make a stand for the skimmer.