Crazy sump/refugium design

[Kngfil352wake]

Okay so Im new to this advice site, I reside in florida and I just got my first tank a couple months back. Its a 55 gallon tank with a marineland 350 dual biowheel. I have a african blue powder grouper that I adore. Thinking about moving him to a bigger tank and this is where Im needing advice...

I have designed a sump/refugium for a bigger tank I have and I want to know the downfalls for this design. I'll describe the design.

The water is first siphoned into a normal SEA LIFE sump into the filters and bio-balls. Iv researched that bio-balls increase nitrates significantly so Iv decided to add a Nitrate filter below the bio-balls. After water exits last nitrate filter, it will be made to go throught a chamber and at the end of this chamber I am going to install a bio-wheel. After it passes through the bio-wheel the water will then fall into the first 30 gallon tank and will be siphoned back out by a overflow system with the filter on the oppisite side of the overflow chamber (Like a normal overflow system). After passing through the overflow filter it will be relased into another 30 gallon tank. The first chamber of that tank will be the protein skimmer, the clean water coming from protein skimmer will drop into a live rock chamber with a deep aragonite sand bed starting the refugium and the next chamber will be an algae chamber and the next chamber will be where the return pump will be located. This is a very complicated design and I just need to know everything right and wrong about this design. I dont even know if it would be bad to put a refugium after all the filtration. please help, thank you.

 

[cmor1701d]

PWC's (partial water changes) are all you need to keep nitrate levels in check. You want to keep them below 50ppm though fish can survive higher rates.

I don't see the reason for a biowheel (produces nitrates) after the bioball chanber. You would be better off using submerged LR rubble instead of bioballs to keep nitrates low.

A DSB without much surface ares won't give you any real nitrate reduction.

A refugium coming after everything else is a good idea!
However, you are overly complicating the entire process.

You should do some more reading on the subject.

Sumps Explained

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sumps, Part I

Refugiums


For some good designs check out Melev's Reef - Sumps & Fuge's

And . . .