My sump

[BCWolfen]

Hey folks

I wanted to run my sump design past you before I sent it off to my arcylic folks to have it built.
Excuse my crappy picture and try to follow along LOL

Its being built out of 1/4" acrylic.
The sump itself is 30" x 16" x 16". The baffles are all 12" tall. This works out to 25Gal of actual water in the sump.
Actually a little less as the return side will not be at 12" of water. The tank can hold a total of 33 gallons.

Area 1 is the return. It will have my 2 heaters on the bottom and also, will have my auto top off float. It will be 8" wide and will have the intake for my main circulation pump.
(Need some help sizing that too. 25 Gal sump, 90 gal tank 33 gal refugium Whats a good size pump)
It's baffle is 12" tall but has another 1" of teeth to keep macro algea and snails in the fuge.

Area 2 is the fuge. It is 12" wide.
It will have a DSB some LR, macro algae and critters
(I will eventually also have my 33 Gal as a viewable fuge with mangroves and cool stuff)
The bubble trap before the fuge has 1" spacing between the baffles. The top down baffle stops 1" of the bottom.

Area 3 is the intake, my overflow will spill down into here with a T to help air go up and water down (keep noise down).
It will be 16" front to back x 9" wide The Skimmer is 6.5" wide x 12" long (to front of valve)
That leaves 4" between valve output and front pane of sump.
The skimmer will sit in the back corner with its output facing the front. I was planning on just putting it right on the bottom, after further analysis I assume it has to sit as high as I want the water level in the
clear pipe to be. So if the water in that section is at 12" I'll have to raise the box up some to get the water line say 1" below the gasket to the collection cup? See my 2nd pic. Is that correct, or is the water level in the skimmer more controlled by the amount your valve is opened.
Now the intake for the MAK4 for the skimmer will be near the bottom of this section near the rear of the skimmer.
Will the mak4 push too much water? ie will the jet of water coming out the ball valve be so much that it will push too hard on the front of the sump, burst the seam?? Should I put a 90 or 45 on that outport and angle it towards the baffle or the floor?
The sump it pretty much at its max size to fit under my stand.

I think thats it. Any thoughts/ideas would be appreciated.

[StirCrazy]

ok how are you incorperating your top off to this?

I see one major problem and it is a mistake I did also. your last baffle makes the water flow over it. this will cause a waterfall effect and you will get macro bubbles in your tank from your return pump.

[Rikko]

In section 1, just add another baffle to the very end that is placed higher and forces the water to then drain under it as well. I've seen some fanatics on RC have up to 5 baffles in a sequence before return because they were so worried about bubbles.

The design is solid, and no reasonable water pump should put any dangerous strain on the acrylic just by pushing water at it (maybe I'm not understanding your concern about the Mak 4). The thing just needs to be built properly and fortunately it's easier to build a high integrity container out of acrylic than out of glass.

Other than that, pretty good, traditional design.

[Willow]

is a 1/4" going to be thick enough for a 33 gallon acrylic sump?

[BCWolfen]

Stir Crazy,
I will be adding a pipe in from over the top that comes from my topoff container. I will be mounting a foat valve in the return section to trigger the flow.

Stir Crazy/Rikko,
Thanks thats a great suggestion. I will add another baffle in the return section set 1" off the bottom.

Willow,
The site where I orgiginally got some of the design ideas manufactures sumps as big as 55gal out of 1/8" Although they use a brace around the top.

I sent the design to a local acrylics company and they said 1/8" too light. 3/16" would work but for $30.00 more they recommend 1/4". I'm assuming they know what they are talking about, so I'm going with their recommendation.