ID help on 3 things and I'll throw in a sump design question

As stated previously, the water is not going to get clean in one pass. With
that in mind what if you design a sump where the water comes from the main
tank and drains into the center of the sump. Then water flows both left and
right to 2 return pumps one on each side. in the left chamber a refugium
and in the right chamber a protein skimmer. Not sure if there would be any
issues with this setup but I figured maybe you could get the best of both
worlds. Please share your comments and let me know if this is really a
crazy idea or something that might be useful.

Frank in FL

"Don Geddis" wrote in message
...
"Bryan" wrote on Thu, 31 Aug 2006:
Will putting a filter pad around the pump going to the skimmer alleviate
the
concern for the pods?

Keep in mind that some people think even putting the pods through a return
pump drastically reduces the number of live ones that make it to the main
tank. Having a skimmer post-refugium can't help either. Also note that
even
if you had all sorts of equipment, SOME pods are going to make it to the
main
tank no matter what. (Imagine you had the opposite problem: a refugium
full
of pods, and you didn't want ANY in the main tank. Do you think you could
design a system that keeps them all out? It's tough...)

Perhaps a filter pad on the skimmer might be a little useful, but
"alleviate
the concern" probably goes too far.

I will say, though, that all I've ever heard are theories and anecdotes.
I
haven't heard anyone do real scientific research on how these designs
affect
the flow of pods into the main tank.

How did you do yours?

Refugium first, skimmer second. But that was more due to the geometry of
how my tank overflows worked, where the equipment would fit, etc. Not a
deliberate design. (I've only got one pump in the system, and I have a
separate refugium tank which gravity-drains into the lowest level sump;
the
return pump then sends everything back to the main tank.)

You can see how it works in a photo like this:
http://reef.geddis.org/a/Tank%20-%20...p/dsc03923.jpg
There are two overflows off the main tank: on the left, and on the right.
In the bottom cabinet, the refugium is the elevated tank on the right.
The sump, with the skimmer (in the sump) and external return pump (to the
right of the sump) is in the cabinet on the left. The refugium
gravity-drains
into the sump. (The white bucket on the right is kalkwasser auto-topoff.)

-- Don
__________________________________________________ _____________________________
Don Geddis
http://reef.geddis.org/