MHensley's 30g Cube Custom Stacked Sump Fuge Build: Lend me your advice and input!

[mhensley]

So I just picked up a slightly used (like-new condition) 30g cube, and I've begun work on designing the build.

The issue with the 30g oceanic cube for me, is the stand and it's small footprint. There are no ready to buy sump/fuge's available that fit inside the small 17x16x28 tall footprint.

So I decided to try building a shelf, and stacking 2x 5 gallon tanks (or equivalent sized acrylic tanks) and creating a separate fuge w/skimmer pump for my Octopus 150 stacked above a chamber for media / heater / probes, etc.

Here's where I am so far. This is to scale:

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My concerns are as follows:

Will the flow into the sub display / macro / refugium area from the overflow of the 30g be enough to run the skimmer pump & provide flow via the 2nd overflow to keep water running into the return pump / lower portion of the 2-part sump?

For reference, the red object is the total footprint of my skimmer.

The black object in the refugium is the overflow box.

The two green objects are pumps, top is skimmer pump, bottom is return pump.

Thoughts / ideas / concerns / anything?

Mitchell

Edit: Also, anyone familiar with Google SketchUp:

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=1d4e095ff4eeb28d46f2f029256b9441&prevstart=0

Excuse my rough draft, I did this pretty quickly in order to get info on the design from you guys!

Mitch

 

[snowmansnow]

i think that could work .. BUT... it looks like it would be IMPOSSIBLE to get to the stuff in those stacked tanks without removing the one over it.

some WILL disagree, and thats ok, but IMO a fuge that small isn't really gonna do much good.

IMHO I would get rid of the middle sump and run only 1 with a skimmer and return pump.

i think it would greatly decrease the number of potential issues the above setup may encounter.

B