changing my filtration how would this work??

[prow]

need to rebuild my sump to fit my new asm g-3 skimmer and was not happy with the miracle mud i have been using over the last year. so changing the whole sump around.
in the display tank i have 1/2" sandbed and 140-150lbs live rock. o tank is 120ish gal. the sump will made out of a 45gal long 48X12X18". found this and i am thinking of doing something like it. http://jjgeisler.com/reeftank/55g_sump-refugium2.htm the changes i would make are the first chamber would have the skimmer in it and the overflow from the display tank going to it, no bioball/media chamber just seperate area for water input and skimmer. the water level would be about 12-13 inches in the refugium chamber 2 and chamber 1 instead of 9" like the one in the link. the last thing would be my return pump would be enternal in the last chamber instead of external. o and i am thinking of using a 1200gph sedra for the return pump. what do you think? go fot it or same design without the plenum? or get a new design?
want the refugium mainly for export and plankton production will take what ever pods and such but not really trying to culture them.

 

[Skimmy]

that looks like a great design, just ditch the plentum.
if all your doing is cleaning the water, and not trying to culture pods, i'd almost put the skimmer after the fuge, that way any crap released by the algae will more likely be taken up by the skimmer. it's a trade off any way you slice it, because if you put the skimmer first then the macro might not get as much stuff as it likes, but if you put the fuge first then the skimmer might not produce as much. but i'd be prone to putting the fuge first in your case.

 

[prow]

yeah i agree. decided to go with out the plenum. i have asm G-3 skimmer. thanks for the reply. the only thing i am deciding on now is if i should still use the Miracle mud for the substrate about 2" or go with a fine grain sand bed 2-3" or mix it. or a little bigger grain and go 4-6". thinking of going with the MM.

 

[Skimmy]

miracle mud is the devil!!!
a. they lie about harvesting it from the ocean, it's been proven to be composed of terrestrial components.
b. it's a vertiable heavy metal soup, when tested in a gas spectrometer it was mostly aluminum, iron, and other metals, i have the spectrometer readout somewhere, i have to find it though

longterm results, ive never been able to control algae in a miracle mud system.

 

[Skimmy]

oh and to answer your question, id either do 4" of fine sand, or better yet 4" of live rock rubble

 

[pda]

Looks like a good setup. Similar to what I did. I have a 90 with a 40 sump. I agree, can the mud. You oughta look at making the G3 a recirc skimmer since you are already re-configuring your sump. I did that to my G3 and it is amazing the amount of skimmate it produces.
I put a T on the overflow pipe to the sump and then a ball valve on the pipe leading to the skimmer, so I can control the amount of flow.