Plumbing for 240g

[NeuroticAquatics]

I decided to totally redo the plumbing on my 240g after one of the connections leaked. I have a center overflow that has two 2” bulkheads that I plan to plumb with 1.5” pvc. Should I run those as separate pipes into my filter sock in the sump or connect them with a tee and make it into a single pipe going to the sump?

The sump is going to be a custom job that I’m building from an acrylic aquarium that I got a while ago. I’m adding some acrylic baffles to create a space for my skimmer and a refugium for chaeto and then an area for the return pump. I just got a new Jebao 8000 DC return pump and planned to run 1” up to the two returns at each end of the 240g.

 

[redfishbluefish]

I also have two 1 1/2 inch drains coming out of my DT. What I did was to bring each separate drain to opposite corners of the sump. The one on the left goes into a sock....and is shared with the skimmer section. The one drain on the right is not socked and enters the refugium section of the sump. The center section is the return section (shared with a biopellet reactor).

 

[NeuroticAquatics]

Why no sock on the one on the right?

 

[redfishbluefish]

To allow all the "nutrients" to enter the refugium.

And in fact the sock on the left was more for keeping snails and the like out of the skimmer pump. 300 micron mesh sock.

 

[Robert Edgar]

I recently plumbed my new 180 with center overflow w/ two 1 1/2 inch drains. I plumbed each with its own pipe to the sump with the though being redundancy. If one suffered some type of clog, the remaining drain would be sufficient to handle the flow.

 

[NeuroticAquatics]

I’m going back and forth between doing what I had before, which sounds like what Robert did or mixing it up like redfishbluefish.

My old sump started at the left with both pipes dropping water into a sock. That went to s skimmer chamber, then into a refugium with chaeto and a bit of rock/rubble and then into the last chamber with a return pump. To me, it seems like that way has the tank water hitting everything before going back in. My chaeto grew like crazy. With splitting the pipes into each side (return in the middle), it seems like there would not be as much filtration going on. Am I missing something with that? I kinda like the sound of that design but I also want the best setup for filtration possible.