Thanks Ron. I am still in the planning stage. I can lower the last baffle to around 1/2-1” above the return chamber water level if you think that would help? Or totally remove the last baffle? Or I can raise my return section water level about 2” above the last baffle too. That will be about the max of my fluctuation. Any higher and when my return pump is turned off it will be getting close to overflowing into my first chamber holding the skimmer. I see no problem with an overflow into the fuge section but I have heard many times to leave the skimmer section at a set level.
Can I ask you, with your return and skimmer in the last chamber how do you deal with water level fluctuations? I’m sure an ato helps with this but does it still affect your skimmer performance? What if your return pump is off? Say for a feed period or it just died. Will your skimmer overflow?
Thanks again
Matt
Excellent questions.
Either lowering the last baffle or removing it will work IMHO. But I wouldn't be surprised if some here say that 3 baffles are required.
You want to be absolutely sure you keep the final section water level low enough that you don't have issues with overflowing the entire sump when the power goes out. You might look at my build thread and see what I just did for anti-siphon at the return nozzles in the DT. Adding jon-guest elbows just makes the whole thing easier and may give you the ability to add water surface movement as well (without having to aim a wavemaker pump at the surface).
An ATO is probably the ideal way to maintain the water level in the last chamber. But I've had issues with floats not working well in a couple of ATO systems. So this time I've opted to just use a dosing pump and add water drops at a time to equal the evaporation rate. My evaporation rate will change when the weather here finally cools down and we start to open the house to the outside. Temps go down by compared to A/C, the humidity goes up and that slows evaporation. But a minor adjustment a couple of times a year is better than fussing with sticky floats every few days! And I have a 20g freshwater tank for my dosing pump and in this A/C season, that lasts close to a month.
Variation in water level will affect my skimmer performance. And I always set my doser to be at or very slightly less than the evaporation rate. So the skimmer becomes less efficient. But that's not a big issue. My mostly zoa and rock flower anemone tank don't mind water that gets a bit more nutrients due to the less effective skimmer. I probably run the tank a bit too clean anyway.
If the power goes out, both the return pump and skimmer go off, so only a minor issue for a minute while the return pump and skimmer go back on and the water is too high. But the skimmer has a float in the cup so if it gets close to overflowing, the skimmer shuts off AND sounds an alarm. On my other tanks with different skimmers I have had overflows and that is why I picked this particular skimmer. That and the fact that it came from Reef Breeders who I know and they have provided me with excellent customer service over may years on a variety of products (leds, pumps, gyres and now skimmers).
I have the return pump and skimmer plugged into the same power strip so they both get shut off when I feed. After feeding, when I turn them both back on, I have the ability to delay the skimmer by 10, 30 or 50 minutes (also built into the skimmer). I always pick 50. So far it has worked pretty well. And I really don't want to get to the point that I need a controller like an Apex.
