[bguile]

I am forced to re-do my sump as my partitions have broken it's seal against the glass. I am also looking to maximize the volume of water that is held in the sump. I will be going with a design keeping my skimmer outside the sump. My sump is a 40g breeder (36x18x16) with the standard intake-refugium-return areas.

In my new design I'm thinking of having water flow into and out of the refugium area through a 4-5" wide opening as opposed to flowing over the entire 18" span. Doing so (I'm thinking) will allow me to make a compartment in the return area for water to flow into and at the same time keep air bubbles from my return pump and also give the final refugium wall some support which broke its seal after trying to hold water when the return area wasn't full.

Do you all think this 4-5" opening would cause too much flow through the refugium?

[Reefland]

Depends on total volume flowing through the sump, but that is a pretty large hole and shouldn't cause too much velocity.

[bguile]

I'm running a Mag 9.5 return pump at a 5 foot head which should give me about 700gph.