My 125 build, just a few questions

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Well I'm working with a lot of stuff I presently have to step up to a 125 from the 55 I have now. I plan on having the 55 set up as the sump for the 125. My first question is how much flow do you reccomend I have travel through my sump? The fuge is going to be a 30 gallon tank I have up high and gravity returning to the DT, so that's not a factor in the sump. I do however want the sump to be somewhat of a "benthic zone" in order to grow some natural filtration, so I will do my best to get it very low light, if lit at all.

 

Any design suggestions? As far as flow from the DT I was going to install 2 2" bulkheads (the extra for redundency). The reason for the large size is that I'd like things to be as quiet as I can make them, and I had read that the bigger pipe will keep the noise down.

 

Should I join the 2 overflow pipes into 1 before they hit the sump? I was going to try my best to have them on a slant instead of straight down (again for noise reduction).

 

For now the skimmer in the sump will be my Aqua C Pro driven by a Mag 7, or I was thinking I could use a larger return pump and use it to drive the skimmer as well, maybe even feed the fuge. I was concened however that in that application the 1000+ gallons flowing down to the sump would be awful loud?

 

I was considering having a remote DSB (in addition to the DSB in the fuge) installed between the overflow and the sump, good idea or not?

 

As far as the fuge is concerned I was going to have it fed by a Mag 3, is that enough or too much flow?

 

Thanks for the help as always

[Tink]

Also should I rinse the sand from the existing 55 before I use it? If so why? Thanks

[Coral Hind]

Here are my thoughts...

 

I would not join the overflows together but let them go separately to the sump, with as few bends as possible. The white PVC tubing it the best at eliminating bends. When the overflows are joined they can be very loud from the rushing water splashing in the pipes. Minimize turbulence.

 

I would wash all the sand except for a few cups to seed the newly cleaned sand bed. The reason is that the current sand bed has been doing its job of collecting and processing nutrients. If you stir this up and put it in your new tank you maybe setting yourself up for an algae bloom.

 

As far as the mag 3, is it going to be in the DT or sump?

 

Do you have a main return pump yet? If you could get a bigger one and do away with the mag 7 then it be one less pump to worry about. If you can get an external main pump, then even better as it would reduce heat added to the water via the pump.

[Tink]

Thanks for the reply.

 

I was thinking it over today and have decided maybe I could do it this way. I will have the Mag 7 set up (external maybe??) as the return from the sump making for about 480gph through the sump (sump + fuge + DT = about 185 gallons total system volume). I was then going to have a ReeFlo Dart set up on a closed loop with 11 outlets (6 under the sand, 4 up top, and 1 sent up to the fuge), I figure that would give me about 300gph to each outlet. That would have me running a Mag 7 and the dart on the system, with a Mag 3 for the skimmer. Do you think the Mag 7 will be enough flow through the sump for a system this size? I was thinking of just having the dart as the return and circulation pump, but that would lower the total GPH to each outlet, as well as have about 3500gph flowing through my sump, that sounds way too high.

[jason the filter freak]

With big vents on your stand pipes if thats what you're using you should get pretty quiet overflows, also check out the thread in this area about reverse durso they work pretty well when you get them set up right. I would also not reccomend joining them.