Newbie needs help

[kirkleigh84]

I got my tank filled with rodi water and let the tank overflow in the sump till the water was level with all of the baffles. I turned the pump and skimmer onn and as you will see by the pics the water is over the baffle at the skimmer about 1/2 to 1 inch. There are a lot of bubbles to. If i pinch down the pump flow the return gets quiet and there is no bubbles but the water is still over the baffle by a inch. Also if I take water out of the sump to lower it the return almost runs dry. Im running an eheim1262pump on an aga 120 with dual overflow. 1 inch drain and 3/4 return. The baffles are 11 inches tall and the sump is a 40 gallon breeder. Here are some pictures.

 

[kirkleigh84]

Thats with it throttled back

 

[kirkleigh84]

Thats with it wide open. Please help.

 

[gilmour01]

are the 2 outside baffles the same height?

 

[roshi719]

Your poblem is most likely coming from having too little water in the sump causing bubbles to be carried to the return pump. What I usually do when I first start up a system is fill the tank till it overflows into the sump, fill the mp all the way up, then plug in the return pump and let the water get to where it will run at, and mark the side of the sump with a sharie, so I know where my max fill to line is. As long as you don't fill over that, the sump won't overflow if the power goes out. The bubbles are oming from the water churning up as goes over your last baffle before the return pump. If you rise the water level in the last chamber the way I jusdescribed it should take care of the bubbles. As far as the water running a half inch above the baffle, it has to in order to flow over it. That part is normal.

 

[RBursek]

I do not understand, how floe is threw your sump, you may have spend some time on tweaking flow and water hight to get it balanced. Are your baffles glass or acrylic? if acrylic may need to cut some teeth in them to let more water threw them at a lower water level.

 

[RBursek]

It looks like your center baffle is higher then the other 2, why? It is acting like a dam .

 

[killingseed2000]

the baffles are to close together and the water have to retain somewhere as enough of it can move though that section. can you draw out a diagram of the sump and its baffles height of them and spacing? would give a better picture of whats going on.

does the sump section go all the way down?
what spacing did your use in the baffels?

looks almost normal based on the way you have the baffles.

 

[gilmour01]

shouldnt the baffle nearest to the return pump be lower than the first baffle? kinda like down hill flow.

 

[AZDesertRat]

Your baffles are correct, almost exactly like mine have been for 6 years. Your 1262 is comparable to my Ocean Runner 3500 too.
What do you have for standpipes? It sounds to me like you don't have enough going through your overflows to keep up with the return pump. Do your standpipes have air intakes, this is very important. If not they will not drain well and may tend to gulp and burp, backing up and flushing kind of like a toilet.

Bubbles are very common when first starting up a new system and really nothing to worry about, they usually go away with time.

Shut the pump off. Fill the display until it just starts to trickle over the overflows. Next fill the sump so it is just above the upper baffle (mark that level on the outside of the glass with a Sharpie) then start the return pump again with the discharge ball valve restricted about 1/2 way. The return chamber will probably drop a little but again thats to be expected. A little at a time open the ball valve and see what happens to the return pump chamber level. If it drops too much add a slight amount of water, maybe 1/2 gallon and see what effect it has. Now shut the pump off and see where that brings the sump level in relation to your Sharpie mark. While you are at it you need to calculate how much your sump holds per vertical inch to help determine how much water you can add. Its easy, in inches LxWx1 inch / 231. An example would be 36" long x 12" widex 1" of height = 432 divided by 231 = 1.87 gallons per inch. Now use your dimensions and it will tel you how much water it takes to raise the sump 1 inch. Once you know this you will be able to top off the sump safely without ever worrying about overflow even in a power outage as long as you never fill past your freeboard or high high level.

 

[Eggs]

Shouldn't the baffle closest to the return pump be removed? The middle baffle prevents the bubbles, that last baffle is just creating more bubbles. The right-hand baffle should create a dam, and the middle prevents the bubbles. The last one is not needed (and is too high).
Also, in the first pic on the quick-connect, is that valve partially closed (open that one up)? If you need to cut the return flow, open up the horizontal pvc valve that you have (above the quick-connect).

The quick-connect to the return pump is a good idea, but you don't need that valve there - you have that covered from the pvc valve, above the horizontal pvc valve.

Setting the water level is correct to what the others said - keep in mind, you can control what water level you want in the return-pump chamber. This is where you would put an automatic top-off (ATO) at. Once your comfy, shut the return-pump power off (to simulate a power outage) to see if your sump can handle the displaced water from your display tank.

 

[AZDesertRat]

Over-under-over baffles are very common and work well, like I said its what I have used for over 6 years on this system:

 

[eggie]

I really dont know if thats a mod you made
But I think the pipes in your skimmer are wrong
The T has to go were your 90 is and the 90 is your discharge
and the big pipe going up is the one that regulates your water level

I got almost the same setting just on a 30 gallon tank same pump and same high baffles water is alway going to be over the top thats the way they overflow
The return on your tank I think they are to small for being 3/4 mines are 1" and i dont regulate my pump is wide open

Hope this helps

 

[kirkleigh84]

Yea I caught that on the skimmer last nightDont know how that happened. Must have been half asleep when i set it up. Everything looks ok now except my overflow going into the sump is making a lot of turbelence. I have the pipe almost on the bottom as you can see by the pictures, any idea how I can get it to be somewhat less turbelent?

 

[AZDesertRat]

I wish you could see it better in my pictures but just left of my skimmer you see the 1" overflow dropping down into my sump center section (my overflow is a single offset center overflow), it goes into a 1" ball valve theer for maintenance only, into a 1x1/2" tee which branches off and feeds the refugium, then into a 1" barbed adapter with a couple feet of 1" heavy reinforced braided clear tubing on it. The tubing is bent in a gradual sweep or 90 degree elbow which lays along the bottom of the sump next to the skimmer. This has a very smooth entrance into the sump with little turbulence and hardly ever any air bubbles and no restriction to speak of.

 

[eggie]

Well I use filter socks on my down pipes from my overflow and just change evry 3-4 days and it helps with the microbubbles and and keep sump cleaner
I also have ball valve that i control on my overflows to make them make less noise

 

[AZDesertRat]

I won't have a filter sock in any of my aquariums, why trap the pods and things that are benficial to a reef system?

You should never ever throttle and overflow. A valve on the discharge side of the pump is fine to throttle or balance flows but restricting an overflow is courting disaster when something lodges on the ball or gate and starts stopping up flow. I have a valve on the overflow but its only for maintenance nothing else. In my earlier picture it was slightly closed but that was 6 years ago when i was first set up and trrying to control microbubles which eventually disappeared on their own. Never throttle an overflow only a return and you get the exact same end result only safer.

 

[eggie]

Well filter socks help keep my sump clean and control microbubbles I dont find ponds in them
Any pod thats in my tank gets crush by my vortech before he gets to my overflow
My Po4 are indetectable and No3 are also so I dont worry