Adding new Christmas goodies

[lcstorc]

Well as many of you know this Christmas was a reefing Christmas and pretty much everything we got was for the reef. Now we have to put all this stuff together and I am looking for advice or suggestions.
Basically we are adding a fuge, a chiller and a much larger skimmer to the system. I am also going to be adding an auto-topoff shortly but that one should be easy and I already have the container so we just need to make sure there is room.
So here is what I have and what I know about what I want to do.
The system is a 125g reef and a 24g aquapod seahorse tank. I am hoping to add a 55g tank for the seahorses in a couple of months but that will be another project. We already have the aquapod and reef exchanging water between the two tanks so I don't have to worry about that part.
The sump is a 30g glass breeder and the new fuge tank is a 29g glass tank. The only think I really need to put in the sump is my asmg4x skimmer so basically we have both tanks to play with. My husband wants to make the baffles out of acrylic but I thought they would need to be glass since both tanks are glass. Any opinions on that one?
Anyway I have a 1 1/2 in pipe in the overflow that carries the water into the sump. I have an 1800 mag pump for the return, and a 1000 mag pump for the chiller . (The chiller is a 1/4hp Pacific Coast chiller that needs between 600 and 900 gph flow based on the specs. We figure since it will need to be out of the stand we will have to have some head loss on the pump so we bought the 1000gph model. The skimmer came with a pump but I honestly have no idea what it is.
One of the things my husband and I have been arguing about is the fuge. I want low flow and do not want the fuge water to go back through the skimmer. I have seveal pod eaters in the tank and am afraid my increased skimming is going to starve them unless I fugure this out right.
My husband made some drawings of what he wants to do but they do not include the chiller. His statement to me was "I have no idea how to add that." So I am hoping some of you DIY gurus will come to my rescue. We do have a friend who has cut both glass and acrylic coming over this weekend to help with setup but if anything needs to be ordered I need to get going on that.
Here are his drawings. Hope they make more sense to you guys than they do to me. Thanks for any suggestions and assistance.

[sasquatch]

Lynn, my neck hurts and Im dizzy!! umm chiller in and out of sump? is there a recommended distance from in to out? Bulkhead from fuge to sump return, and use a power head to move water thru fuge. I think Melevs reef has an article on moveable baffles using closed cell foam sealing tape(works great) Steve

[iluvzigz]

???? i
wish
i
could
help.....

i need some help plumbing my new skimmer aswell....good luck lynn.

[sasquatch]

Danger Will Robinson Danger!!!!!, just read a post (elsewhere) about a chiller nightmare, new chiller,didnt flush it, used automotive hose, turned on and didnt monitor it, temp dropped,bad things happened in tank(yikes!) also just thought with all this new gear going in your new skimmer will be kinda ineffective for a bit, can you run the old one as well or not enough room? WE want pics we want pics we want pics lol. Steve

[lcstorc]

Thanks for the warning on the chiller. I will be sure to watch it carefully. Why would the new skimmer not work well in the beginning? I may have enough room in the new sump for both for a time, but I'm not sure. The new one is pretty big and just fits in the sump as far as width. If I have extra room on the length then I can probably leave it for a while as you suggested. Or maybe I could put it in the fuge for a time to keep it running.
All this plumbing makes my head hurt. We have looked and looked at melev's site as well as others and I just seem to get more and more confused.
Pumps, head loss, flow rates, etc. It's just too much for my little brain to grasp. Maybe my new skimmer people have some ideas.

[Woodstock]

I can not offer you any ideas. I have only had a single sump/refugium to plumb which was a no brainer. Yours looks complicated.

I do agree with flushing the chiller prior to use.

[sasquatch]

break in time for skimmer = manufacturing lubricants, dot's and human dna , could you redraw the plans a little smaller and rotate them on page? Steve

[lcstorc]

Well you don't want me to redraw. LOL They are my husband's plans. Perhaps I can shrink and rotate the images. Let me try and see what I get. Also plans changed slightly yesterday. He bought another 29g tank for the sump. So now I will have 2 identical tanks one for the sump and the other for the fuge.

[lcstorc]

Well I rotated them. Lets see if you can see it any better.

[boozeman]

so...one overflow to the fuge and another to the sump and then they meet and are pumped back to the tank...can't see why it wouldn't work other than maybe you could make that return chamber a little larger to recieve the incomming flow ...considering all the disaster stories I've been reading about lately, maybe two smaller return pumps rather than one large one...hmm maybe then just plumb them separately

[Pro_builder]

Here are a few things that I would do differently:
1: Put the Refuge on the first drop from the main tank, that way you can put a T and a Valve in it to control the flow into that tank, and the rest has to go to the Sump.

2: Make your return to main tank area in the sump larger. That way when you put the auto top off devices in you won't have to worry about large fluctuations in water level at that point, less of a chance of overflowing the sump.

3: Make sure that you can put a Filter Sock on the input to the Sump, so when you do cleanings you aren't gettting the gunk flowing through the system. Just a faster way to keep the system water cleaner.

4: Have the chiller input w/ power head come from the Skimmer area, and also dump into the final return chamber, this way the water doesn't flow through the chiller more than once.

[mps9506]

Originally Posted by Pro_builder

Here are a few things that I would do differently:
1: Put the Refuge on the first drop from the main tank, that way you can put a T and a Valve in it to control the flow into that tank, and the rest has to go to the Sump.

Ditto!

Acrylic baffles work fine, just make sure to get thick enough that it won't bow under water pressure, I think 3/16" is good?

As far as the chiller, if you are using a dedicated pump it is simple, and I think Pro already covered it. Just make sure the chiller output is in the end of the sump away from the intake of the chiller so it doesn't go through twice.

[Gibeon]

Ahhh... plumbing fun time!

On the acrylic and glass - you can use aquarium silicone to hold the baffles in place, the pressure is pretty much equalized. I just wouldn't make a tank out of acrylic and silicone.

If there are sections where the baffle has a pressure differential (return pump area I'm guessing) I would use thicker acrylic and brace it against the pressure by adding pieces at right angles to the baffle where it meets the glass on the low pressure side.

[sasquatch]

This all looks good Lynn, only thing I would do is find a way to screen the light for the fuge so the sump and equip remain growth free , good luck. Steve

[sasquatch]

SO WHERES our UPDATE!!!