Sump Baffles - Over/Under or Under/Over

[afamousjohnson]

Building a new sump. I built my old sump and have 2 seperate sets of baffles within it - 1 of each of these. 1st chamber is drain and skimmer with a 2 piece acrylic baffle which is under over - it drains into my fuge - next is another 2 piece baffle with an over under into my return.

I have noticed there is more bubble action (in my case) with an under over baffle than an over under baffle. I have also noticed in my searchs of sump designs that more often than not the baffle in most sumps after the skimmer section in 1st chamber is always an under over type baffle(unless a 3piece baffle entering return chamber obviously - this goes for both skimmer-fuge-return & skimmer-return-fuge type sumps)

So I want my return in my middle chamber fed from both sides. I want to make both baffles coming into the return chamber addjustable(off skimmer section in 1st chamber and off frag section in last chamber)

So what do people know about these 2 types of baffle settings. I was looking at having each chamber do the opposite of what I've seen with having an over under 2 piece baffle going into the return chamber instead of an under over.

 

[tigerdragon]

In mine from first sect skimmer i have over under over and yes i get a lot of bubble action into rtn sect i should have done under over under. From my third sect which is fuge i did over under and get no bubble action.

 

[afamousjohnson]

Ya the furthest I will go with a 3 piece baffle is 2 and a small catch at the end going up a few inchs.

 

[afamousjohnson]

Seems for a 2 piece baffle that an over under works well to catch bubbles even when evaporation is involved. So it baffles me.lol why every 2 piece out of the skimmer section seems to be an under over - and more why aren't all 2 piece baffles set over under?

 

[redfishbluefish]

I recently responded to a build post about baffles. My first sump was over-under-over. This was replaced with a sump that was over-under. My current sump has no bubble baffles.

I would suggest that if you want bubble baffles, go with over-under. The reason is that if bubbles are driven down low into that first chamber, they could potentionally be pushed under an under-over baffle arrangement into the next chamber. If it were over-under, the bubbles would never get down to the second "under" baffle. Hope that makes sense.

 

[afamousjohnson]

Totally makes sense - that is what I was seeing with my current setup. Is that a 40b? thats what I am working with over here on my new build. Will be close to that but I will be trying for 4 chambers - or say 3 1/2 chambers if i can.lol

Confuses me why I see so many 2 piece baffles that are under over?? maybe design start up and copy over time. I guess I will be doing it this way and we will see if it is productive in the end for a center return. I need the space that 3rd baffle would be taking so I thin k this is the best way around that.

I recently responded to a build post about baffles. My first sump was over-under-over. This was replaced with a sump that was over-under. My current sump has no bubble baffles.

I would suggest that if you want bubble baffles, go with over-under. The reason is that if bubbles are driven down low into that first chamber, they could potentionally be pushed under an under-over baffle arrangement into the next chamber. If it were over-under, the bubbles would never get down to the second "under" baffle. Hope that makes sense.