Sump Design

[Tokash23]

I am having issues with my sump as of late and i have to do a fix sooner rather than later because of obvious issues. My options are either take the whole thing out and redo the baffles (which i dont really want to do) or just ditch the baffles altogether and have just one chamber. Now if i set the auto top off to the level i want in the sump is this a viable option? I dont have a refugium setup or anything like that it mainly houses my skimmer and heater and such. I would like to add some stuff down the road such as some chaeto and maybe some extra live rock but egg crate will be suffice to keep that stuff in place. Thoughts?

 

[Reef of Fillory]

There are quite a few people who run a sump with one section. The biggest concern would be the water level for the skimmer varying [with an over-baffle you can keep it constant].

I think that with an accurate enough ATO you might get away with tuning your skimmer somewhere around your desired skimming consistency and get an acceptable result.

I've been having issues with my chaeto falling apart recently so I wouldn't feel comfortable with just eggcrate keeping my chaeto out of my skimmer pump and return pump, but I might have something weird going on which biases my thoughts on that one. I have seen a number of 'chaeto jails' being used successfully in sumps.

 

[Tokash23]

Thanks for the reply. The skimmer is really my only concern but like you said i think the water will stay close enough to keep things acceptable. Do you think ill have to worry about micro bubbles? I suppose in the situation im in i could try it and if i dont like it then go back to the original plan of completely rebuilding the sump.