Dodgersfan
Well-Known Member
hey guys,
Setting up a new 90 gallon. Amazon screwed something up internally and sold me the previous generation eshoppes ADV-200 for $86 bucks They had it filed under fish bowls.... anyway, a pic of it is attached, it has two parallel chambers the smaller rear one is designed to be the fuge and the larger front one is supposed to be the skimmer compartment, the far right chamber is the return chamber. Having the fuge in that tiny narrow back compartment is less than ideal, I've thought of a few ways to change things up so I can use the large front compartment for the Fuge, but I'd like some feedback on them, especially from those that have built or modified sumps in the past.
Option 1: change it from a dual channel to single channel. Basically right now water from the overflow drops into the back left corner, where there are flow throughs to both the front and rear chamber, both of those overflow into the far right return chamber. I'll have to do a good bit of modification to make this work, but basically I would plug up the flow through to the front chamber so water coming in only flows through the back chamber, I'd add another piece of plexi to the return compartment side of the bubble trap slightly higher than the front chamber side to prevent backflow. Then on the opposite end of the front chamber (front left) I'll add a piece of plexi with a screened overflow cut in it at the same height as the lower baffle on the bubble trap to add a 4th compartment about 5-6" wide to serve as a return chamber. So basically the original return chamber becomes my skimmer compartment. The Bubble Magus NAC 5.5 skimmer will fit in that compartment: https://www.marinedepot.com/Bubble_...huKNQMFtH7iBbdyoc-5XFWUy5FqEjlKRoCFNwQAvD_BwE
Do you guys think this will work in practice, not just on paper? Am I asking for trouble altering the way water flows through the sump? Are there any potential problems I'm not seeing?
My 2nd option is to not modify the layout but use a HOB skimmer like the reef octopus 2000 on the rear compartment, I've got enough room behind the sump in the stand, but I'd have to settle for a pretty big drop off in skimmer effectiveness, wouldn't I? Can anyone hazard a guess at how big the drop off in effectiveness between the bubble magus and the reef octopus will be? Any feedback/thoughts/ideas are appreciated! Thanks!
Setting up a new 90 gallon. Amazon screwed something up internally and sold me the previous generation eshoppes ADV-200 for $86 bucks They had it filed under fish bowls.... anyway, a pic of it is attached, it has two parallel chambers the smaller rear one is designed to be the fuge and the larger front one is supposed to be the skimmer compartment, the far right chamber is the return chamber. Having the fuge in that tiny narrow back compartment is less than ideal, I've thought of a few ways to change things up so I can use the large front compartment for the Fuge, but I'd like some feedback on them, especially from those that have built or modified sumps in the past.
Option 1: change it from a dual channel to single channel. Basically right now water from the overflow drops into the back left corner, where there are flow throughs to both the front and rear chamber, both of those overflow into the far right return chamber. I'll have to do a good bit of modification to make this work, but basically I would plug up the flow through to the front chamber so water coming in only flows through the back chamber, I'd add another piece of plexi to the return compartment side of the bubble trap slightly higher than the front chamber side to prevent backflow. Then on the opposite end of the front chamber (front left) I'll add a piece of plexi with a screened overflow cut in it at the same height as the lower baffle on the bubble trap to add a 4th compartment about 5-6" wide to serve as a return chamber. So basically the original return chamber becomes my skimmer compartment. The Bubble Magus NAC 5.5 skimmer will fit in that compartment: https://www.marinedepot.com/Bubble_...huKNQMFtH7iBbdyoc-5XFWUy5FqEjlKRoCFNwQAvD_BwE
Do you guys think this will work in practice, not just on paper? Am I asking for trouble altering the way water flows through the sump? Are there any potential problems I'm not seeing?
My 2nd option is to not modify the layout but use a HOB skimmer like the reef octopus 2000 on the rear compartment, I've got enough room behind the sump in the stand, but I'd have to settle for a pretty big drop off in skimmer effectiveness, wouldn't I? Can anyone hazard a guess at how big the drop off in effectiveness between the bubble magus and the reef octopus will be? Any feedback/thoughts/ideas are appreciated! Thanks!
