help critique my plumbing/sump design

Hello,

Several days ago I posted a bunch of sump design questions to
this group. Marc was kind enough to answer some of them and
point me to his nice web site that answered more of my questions.

We are about to move offices at work. My group has a 90gal reef
tank in our current office. I'm planning on getting a new tank and
completely redesigning the sump and plumbing. I'm looking for
advice/comments on my proposed design. I've posted a PDF file of
the design at

http://net.doit.wisc.edu/~jeffb/reef/

Note that it is not to any scale and that my drawing skills are
limited (ex: the Durso standpipes aren't accurately drawn).

The main tank will be a AGA 120gal with their new MegaFlow overflows
and new Durso-type plumbing kits. Does anyone have any real experience
with these? They have only been out a couple of months, and none
of the LFS have them in stock yet for me to take a look at.

The 29g sump on our current tank has a refugium in the middle. I'm
guessing the flow through the refugium is much higher than it should
be (1200gph return pump), so I've split the sump and refugium into
separate tanks (AGA 40g breeders) in the new design. I could have
created a separate lower flow path for the refugium in the sump,
but I had room for separate tanks in our new space. While not
reflected in the attached file, it has been suggested that I mount
the refugium tank higher and have it gravity drain back to the
display tank, so the refugium can be a food source for the display
tank. Our cubical walls are 77 inches tall, so I think this will
work.

The sump return pump is an Iwaki WMD40RLXT (1200gph) off our current
90gal tank. My new design originally had a separate pump for moving
water from the sump return area to the refugium. It was suggested
that I split the Iwaki output between the display tank and the
refugium, so I wouldn't have to purchase an additional pump. If I
move the refugium above the display tank, will this still work?
Should I go with a separate pump instead?

I'm a bit concerned about circulation in the display tank. Having
the 1200gph (minus what goes to the refugium) all return via the
two return pipes in the overflows seems like it wouldn't give good
coverage in the tank. It also wouldn't provide good alternating
circulation. We have a Wavemaster Pro box with 4 Maxijet 1200
powerheads that I can move from the existing tank. That may be
sufficient for now, but I don't want to be later regretting not
making some improvement now while the tank is empty. Do you think
I should be considering some type of closed loop wave generator
now? Could it be added later by plumbing it over the top of the
tank? Drilling the expensive display tank scares me a bit, although
I plan on drilling the sump and refugium tanks.

Items I'm considering adding to the current design include: a place
to temporarily put filter media (ex: carbon), probe holders, and
float switch mount points. I currently don't have any probes or
float switches, so I'm not sure how those devices are mounted.

I'm looking for any ideas on improvements for the sump. Give me
your comments.

Thanks for your help,

Jeff

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Jeff Bartig | University of Wisconsin - Madison
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