well, disregard my method of installinga baffle and go with Al’s. I filled mine up last night and it promptly pulled apart. all the silicone pealed off the acrylic tank nice and clean though. well back to plan B.
I use sand paper on the acrylic to get a good adhesion. Shawn what thickness of glass do you get from the depot? I usually only find real thin stuff which I don’t recommend.
did you evenly dispense the water into the tank? if you fill one chamber thats alot of weight on that one baffle, i put a cup of water in each chamber till the tank was full
I just poor it in. My acrylic baffles held
had another question on flow throughout the sump…would i just control it by creating a cascading effect varrying the heights of the baffles or is there another method? concerned about keeping the refug area slow while maintaing enough water for the pump
uh… the pump is gonna control the flow, regardless of how u set the baffles.
i think he means velocity, if you widen the baffles you wont have high velocity through your sump, mine are 3" apart and its enough time to get the micro bubbles out, and the fuge has a nice slowish circulation going on.
narrow baffles will have your water whipping through and keeping the bubbles in the flow
Shawn what thickness of glass do you get from the depot?
ive always used the thin glass for window pane replacement. the sump i built over 5 yeas ago is still going strong and the glass is more than strong enough. i can literally hold my sump by its baffle with no flex. However, ive only ever built sumps out of 20L’s so it might not hold up in a tank wider than 12". Ive probably built about 10 of these over the years for various people and as far as i know not one has ever come undone. I also use a minimum amount of silicone. IMO, the thicker/messier the silicone seams the weaker. I probably use about 1/3 to 1/2 of a standard tube of silicon for three baffles.
I use sand paper on the acrylic to get a good adhesion.
I know people use acrylic with good results and i bet sanding helps, but the very first one i built was made of acrylic and failed rather quickly. It was actually mbuna that told me to use glass all those years ago.
think he means velocity, if you widen the baffles you wont have high velocity through your sump, mine are 3" apart and its enough time to get the micro bubbles out, and the fuge has a nice slowish circulation going on.
uh... the pump is gonna control the flow, regardless of how u set the baffles.
ive got to agree with fishguy. ive always set the baffles about 1" apart and never get bubbles regardless of the turnover. the key to bubbles is how the enter the sump as much as the baffles. in inverted 180 will bring all of the bubbles to the surface right away and you wont have to worry about them getting through the baffles. IMO 3" is wasting to much real estate if your doing a sump/fuge.
:TWOCENTS over the years ive realized that baffles are not even needed if your intent is simply to reduce bubbles. if you dump on one end of the tank with an inverted 180 facing up and pull water from the opposite with a 90 facing down you will never see a bubble. the key is to use a large diameter pipe for the dump so the 180 doesnt restrict to much. when i recently remodeled my fish room i turned my old DIY fuge/sump into a fuge only and use a 20L with no baffles as my sump. i dont even invert the drain. i drop a 3" pipe straight down about 4-6" below the surface for my drain and simply have my return about 1" from the bottom. although my sump is very turbulent, my return pump doesnt pull any bubbles because of the depth of the water. the 3" is a drain for my beckett skimmer which runs about 1000gph, two substrate reactors, and my tank overflow incase your curious about the amount of volume. no bubbles.
[quote=“logans_daddy, post:68, topic:1193”]
:TWOCENTS over the years ive realized that baffles are not even needed if your intent is simply to reduce bubbles. if you dump on one end of the tank with an inverted 180 facing up and pull water from the opposite with a 90 facing down you will never see a bubble. the key is to use a large diameter pipe for the dump so the 180 doesnt restrict to much. when i recently remodeled my fish room i turned my old DIY fuge/sump into a fuge only and use a 20L with no baffles as my sump. i dont even invert the drain. i drop a 3" pipe straight down about 4-6" below the surface for my drain and simply have my return about 1" from the bottom. although my sump is very turbulent, my return pump doesnt pull any bubbles because of the depth of the water. the 3" is a drain for my beckett skimmer which runs about 1000gph, two substrate reactors, and my tank overflow incase your curious about the amount of volume. no bubbles.[/quote]
I agree, I removed the baffles too. Over time as the plumbing got coated and worked in the small amount of bubbles I had at start up went away. As you place stuff/equip/cheato in the sump the water will not flow directly across the sump to the return but move through and around and the bubbles will move to the surface. Chances are if bubbles continue after 3 weeks of running the return plumbing has a leak.
I would only use a baffle to break up the return pump from cheato or to compartmentalize.
I don’t feel there is much gain (bubble loss) by an over under baffle.
I would only use a baffle to break up the return pump from cheato or to compartmentalize
Chances are if bubbles continue after 3 weeks of running the return plumbing has a leak.+1
or u could always squeeze a block sponge between the over/under and pretty much eliminate ANY chance of bubbles getting through. (it also works nice for catching pods… for whatever reason u may wanna catch pods!!) lol
correct i was refering to velocity should have been more specific… thanks again for everyones input…i will be buying the materials this weekend i’ll take some pics after i’ve completed the sump…
or u could always squeeze a block sponge between the over/under and pretty much eliminate ANY chance of bubbles getting through
IME sponges/filter socks are nothing but a PIA. unless your willing to regularly clean them and keep them free of detritus they will quickly become a source of NO3
[quote=“logans_daddy, post:73, topic:1193”]
or u could always squeeze a block sponge between the over/under and pretty much eliminate ANY chance of bubbles getting through
IME sponges/filter socks are nothing but a PIA. unless your willing to regularly clean them and keep them free of detritus they will quickly become a source of NO3[/quote]
i didn’t plan on adding a filter sock or sponge…figured with the LR,refugium,skimmer,sand bed and carbon filer i had ample filtration
it is a bit of a pain… just like a little “polishing”. something mechanical (i.e. floss of some sort to catch the particles)
[quote=“fishguy9, post:66, topic:1193”]
uh… the pump is gonna control the flow, regardless of how u set the baffles.[/quote]
wouldn’t the siphon on the overflow be the ultimate control for the system…the rate of pumping would be negated by the amount of water the overflow expelled into the sump?
but the overflow will only siphon as much as is being pumped in… (until the max flo is reached by the overflow of course)
fishguy is correct, its determined by the pump. we control the turnover rate by adjusting the output of the pump, not by adjusting the rate at which we can drain. the tank can only drain as fast as we pump the water until we approach the capacity of the drain. if we pump 50gph, we drain 50gph so on and so on.
i was concerned about the return pump not receiving enough water…i have to use a 10 gallon tank for my sump…can’t fit the 20L under my stand… would have take down the entire tank to fit 20L underneath …sucks but i think i can manage something using a spare tank i have laying around just won’t have as large a volume for the refug as i wanted
maybe a 15 or 20 tall would give ya a little more volume…