Too much salt creep in intake

wontonflip

I failed Kobayashi Maru
I have 2 1" pipes dumping water into my intake section of the sump really fast. I am losing water and getting salt creep around the are where the water comes in. I just extended y pvc into the water some more, but the water is just coming down too fast....which is great because I know my pump's working well...but I'm trying to find ways to keep the water in the tank. It's not extremely horrible, but I'd like to find other ways, short of adding rubble there. I"m hesitant to add rubble because it might be too turbulent, causing the rubble to dance around the intake, and get sucked up in the pump that feeds the fuge.

FYI, the water also exits froma predrilled pvc at the top, that dumps it into the rubbermaid skimmer/return tub next to it.

Any inventive ideas? You see the salt puddles on the 2nd picture, to the right of the intake. The left is the rubbermaid tub.

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The water level is to close to the top of the tank. Possibly build a shield around the top of the tank to prevent the water from splashing out. Some plastic or foam sheets from the hardware store could be glued into a makeshift wall.
 
How about some larger pieces of LR? They might help keep the turbulance spread out and slow the bubbles down a bit. They wont be large enough to get blown arouond by the return.

Just an Idea:twocents:
 
seems like you could benefit from a bigger sump

LOL....this is just the intake :) It dumps into the large 50g rubbermaid tub. Overall, this sump is 70 gallons.


I agree that you need a lower water level. All that creep can't be good. It will deteriorate things in time.

I can't lower the level -- this 20g intake is predrilled, and its overflow, as I just mentioned, is dumping into the rubbermaid tub. I think maybe VAreef is right, and I should add shielding.

How about some larger pieces of LR? They might help keep the turbulance spread out and slow the bubbles down a bit. They wont be large enough to get blown arouond by the return.

I think maybe I'll pick up a couple pieces of base rock from my lfs. A t least it'll be cheap.

Thanks all!
 
Im not sure I understand what purpose the 20g serves other than extra water volume. Between the 20g and the 50g, I'd rather see your overflows dump into the 50g, and then it can overflow into the 20g. The 20g would serve as a great fuge and it seems like you could solve your problem there with a little change in the design.
 
Ok, follow my logic :)

I wanted to use a few pumps as possible to move water around. And I wanted my intake to bear the brunt of the bubbles from the overflows, and the return container is strictly skimmer and return pump (and now, my floatswitch for my ATO).

I also wanted a place that's 100% unskimmed tank water to feed my above tank refugium.

I also did not want to buy another large tank and install baffles. I wanted room to play...hell, I have a whole sump room, why not? LOL

Ok. So originally, we drilled holes for the pvc in a smaller rubbermaid tub to serve as intake. Massive fail because the plastic was too flexible, and was hard to stop leaks. My lfs has tons of used predrilled tanks, so I purchased at 20g predrilled for $20.

In that 20g intake, I have a pump that feeds my above tank fuge. Then of course, the rest of the water spills over into the 50g rubbermaid tub. In there, I have my skimmer, return pump, and the float switch.

In this set up, I'm not really stressing about space. I have plenty of room to do my maintenance. Mind you, if I had no dedicated sump room, I couldn't pull this off anyway.

Hope that makes sense now? Yes, i understand it's a lot....but again, that's what the room is for ;)

EDIT: Oh and I think my desire for an above-tank fuge was the main catalyst in this setup. I wanted more live pods to get into the main tank, so letting them spill into the tank from above w/o going through a pump was what I was going for. Had I had the fuge under the tank, yes, pods will end up in the tank by way of a pump, but not all of them would survive the pump. My goal in a year is to have a fat mandarin LOL
 
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Ok I understand that whole above tank fuge its a great concept but I think you just have to go in knowing that no matter what you do 100% of your pods will NEVER live, some are going to die. But I think as long as you have a good colony of pods outside your display to breed and give them plenty of time to build a population you will have no problem having them in your display no matter where you plumb your fuge in.

As for the salt that is not good, I would lower the water level. Honestly the more separate tanks or tubs you have the more chances for leaks and other problems. I think some times the best plan is a simple one.
 
+1 Darko! I think you are kinda stuck with your salt creep problem if you leave your setup the way it is, because you cannot lower the level in your 20g since it's drilled so high, and that's what is setting the level in that tank. I understand your concern about the fuge and pods, but as Donna said, they are going to have die off either way. When they get chopped up in the pumps, they just become instant fish and coral food. The salt creep is because you have too much movement in that 20g and there really isn't a great reason to have the 20g. You could just as easily leave the elevated fuge where it is, but put the pump for it in the 50g, move your overflows to the 50g, and get rid of all need for the 20g. Better yet, I'd say get rid of both the 20 and the 50g tanks, and get a 100g rubbermaid so that you can put some baffles in it and keep your skimmed water separate from your fuge while keeping it all in one, and not sacrificing water volume.
 
On a side note my local club meeting last month Mel from Melevsreef.com - 280g reef

He talked about large tanks and fish rooms there was a lot of useful information he had about setting up a fish room and large tanks I am sure you have seen this many times but really all of the little things he talked about that even the president of our club learned some stuff and he has been doing this for years.
 
I want an above tank refugium at some point too. I love the idea that the pods aren't ground up by a pump when they are pumped to the tank. It will be a few months before I get to that point though as I don't have the shelving built yet.
 
I think you will be forced redesign your set-up unfortunately. Probably sooner than later. Sometimes things just don't work the way we want them to. Trial and error. :(
 
I'm very familiar w/ melevsreef....in fact, the sump/fuge set i had in my 45g was based off his and it worked well :D

Thanks for the input darko and Justin :) I do appreciate it. This final layout of my sump room was a result of a year's worth of threads here in livingreefs. I know there are other ways to do things, and I'm all about improving reef systems. I went with this approach, and yes, now I'm doing tweaks to my layout to make it better. I have room to improve. But for now, I'm happy with this setup in my sump room because of the amount of space (this coming from my limited space under my 45g! LOL)

While I know that not 100% pods survive of course, I've read many posts over the past year here different things. This was just one approach. I've read posts of people suggesting an above tank fuge because it's a good way to get more living pods into the main tank (again I know not 100% of pods live long enough to make it into the dt). I once even asked why an above tank fuge was better -- and that's where people here mentioned that some pods end up ground up in the pump (not all, but some). Since then, I had my heart set on an above tank fuge.

I love to experiment and see what works. I like to make mistakes, and find ways to fix it (why the hell do you think I upgraded to a 125 within a year of starting this hobby? LOL!!! :D)

So, that said, I understand the best solution is to reconfigure thing like you guys suggested...that was an obvious answer. But right now, I'd like to see a work around for this current setup. So far, my best bet is to find a way to raise the tank's height w/o having to change out the containers. It's not your ideal fix, of course, but I"m big on diy and making adjustments as needed.

HEY!! Maybe when I upgrade to a 200+g tank I can do another redesign! LOL!! This hobby is awesome because there are so many ways to do things, and good thing we have forums like this with varying opinions to help with improvements. ;)
 
OH and darko...did you meet marc? I loved his site. It was one of the first reefing sites I bookmarked :) We literally scoured the internet for a fuge design, and for me, his one design was the best...and honestly, it was! Never had any issues with mine. I still have the 20g sump that we put baffles in. I'm not planning on getting rid of it. It was our first project.
 
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