Need a little help

[Breakthecycle2]

What a shame, that looked like a really nice sump. I would go with 80-90 gallons not including any kind of ATO reservoir. And if you do get an ATO reservoir, keep it modest, 6-8 gallons. Just keeps it safer. I've heard many a story of ATO system failures that empty the entire volume of mega reservoirs into the tank. It obviously makes a big mess and could potentially crash your tank with a large sudden drop in salinity.

See, I had another sump when I set up my tank. It was 48x24x20. The problem was I had a carpenter build my stand, so he overkilled it when making it. The sump wouldn't really fit in the stand, so he trimmed some of the 4"x6"s to make it fit. I just thought it was too big anyway. In retrospect I should have kept it.

 

[Breakthecycle2]

What dimensions should I go with?

 

[Lenny_S]

It really depends on what kind of filtration you're going to do. If you have a skimmer and want to do a refugium then you need to make the skimmer section big enough for the footprint of the skimmer and some room for a baffle. Refugium should be at least 10% of the tank volume, and the return section just big enough for the return pump if you use a submersible.

 

[Breakthecycle2]

Well, I have a fuge and skimmer section now with a small return pump chamber.

 

[Lenny_S]

If you could just adjust the returns you can probably keep what you have, it's just undersized a bit. Otherwise go back to that 48" sump you had before

 

[Breakthecycle2]

I don't know how else to adjust them. If I aim that at the top, the water will just flow all over against the top.

 

[Lenny_S]

Do you have loc line? Can you make an offset similar to this...

This is mine where I raise the outlet then just angle it down slightly

 

[Breakthecycle2]

Hmm...Maybe I'll have to get some.

 

[Fin]

Yeah, I was going to suggest Lok-Line and bring the returns up closer to the surface and then point them downward. I wouldn't change my sump.

BYW, check valves are pretty much a waste of money. They will all fail, given time. Not reliable enough to count on them preventing a flood.