Yet another sump thread! Yea!

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Ok I'm feeling a little depressed now and hope I did screw up big time. I went to Lowes Hardware and bought GE silicone 1. 100% silicone for window/door/attic/basement. I didn't see any additives at all so figured this was the one.

So I have put in all my partitions and was letting it dry overnight. I went back to the tube I bought to see if I needed to let it sit for 24 hours or what and as I was reading it there is a section that says: "Allow at least 12 hours before exposing caulk to water. Not for use below the water line or aquariums."

OMG! So what the heck? I though this was the right stuff. Is my tank now totally hosed and can't be used at all? Or is that just their own warning to save themselves and this stuff will work?

HELP!?!

EDIT: In case it matters all the writing and stuff is in blue.
 
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well, i would call GE. check the tube for a customer service number. that's what i did when all they had at the home depot was DAP products.
 
They are closed right now so I can't call until Monday.

Everything I researched showed that GE Silicone 1 would be good to use. I really thought I read the label but missed this one thing. I can understand them putting a warning on it to save them from having liability but I wonder if it is still ok. I know a lot of people have used it and not had any problems at all. The most recent thread I saw was in Feb of this year and they didn't seem to have any problems after 2 months.

It would be a LOT of work to get this stuff off now that I have all the baffles in and I re-sealed the bottom inner seam...
 
So here is what it looks like right now. I did end up scraping off ALL the GE 1 and used aquarium specific silicone (which really stunk since I had all the baffles in place already).

It was recommended that I put in a bubble trap after the fuge as well. I may end up doing that after my leak test tonight. Is is really needed?

Anyway, the intake is the far right (the stand is for my skimmer), then the next is the live rock, then the return section and the far left is the fuge (I have egg crate at the top to keep any macro algae from spilling over). The pump in the return section will go back to the tank and have a split to also feed the fuge.

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it looks like one too many sections to me. why not have the live rock and macro algae together in the same compartment? then the refugium will be a lot larger.
i would always have the bubble trap before the return section, and if you make it that last section on the left, you won't need 2 bubble traps.
 
I was planning on having a DSB in the fuge with the macro on top, which is why I was separating the two.

Also, I was worried about flow through the fuge which is why it is separated off to the left and the return is in the middle.

If I had an area that had macro and live rock down the middle then I don't know if it would have enough flow down lower and would cause it to get stagnant.
 
i've always built and ran my sumps the way i mentioned and never had any trouble with stagnating water.
what flow will you have in the refugium? more or less than the rest of the sump, and why?
 
Well, It was going to be a little less than the rest I believe. It was going to be a bit less to keep the sand bed from getting stirred up.

Please keep comments coming. It is NOT too late for me to change the design and if it should be changed I would rather do it now :) I had thought of a 3 section sump (intake, then live rock/macro, then return) but remembered seeing another thread with someone with that kind of a setup and they were having a lot of problems because the water was just flowing across the top of the fuge section. I don't want that to happen.
 
how did this person know that there was no flow at the bottom of the rock? what problems did they speak of?
if that was the case, wouldn't the water down there be void of oxygen, since it is never changed? all of the sumps i built were loaded with life at the bottom....oxygen using life.
 
Well, the pictures posted showed the section was very cloudy and he mentioned only seeing the water going along the top. I don't recall the thread now but it was on this site some time ago...
 
cloudy? that's just incredible to me. i've had very deep refugiums with no problems at all. i never had a cloudy refugium. maybe the guy was using reef mud or something, and that was making it cloudy. what would make it cloudy otherwise?
 
I'm sorry but I don't remember :(

I believe the idea for this sump was based off of designs I found on Melevsreef and reading up on his ideas.

Just thinking about this, if I was to re-do it, I could do a 1/2 bubble trap where the water would enter the refug section at the bottom and then exit as the top. That would give extra flow. How about that idea? Or have the baffle from the intake section 1-2" higher than the exit section, there would be a slight drop that would push water down a bit. That would be an easier way to do it.

Then again I would now have a return pump that would most likely be too strong for the system since I purchased one specifically to have a split off to a side fuge...
 
this tank was a standard 75 gallon...look, intake, refugium, and return. all in a row and you can see how deep they are.
img_1395944_0_6786b91a4e48519eeb935560c3ed8441.jpg


...and here is a standard 125 gallon tank...same deal...
img_1395944_1_ce61c88ccc2133ace3374c24dbd8cdba.jpg
 
i just think less is more in this situation. i think you, and the other guy with the "flow problems" are over thinking this and making it more complicated than it needs to me.
 
Do you even have any bubble traps in those setups? Also, are the baffles at the same height?

Edit: Thanks for all this quick back and forth! :)
 
yes, partitions are the same height and sort of- i only use an over and then an under- i don't think another over is doing anything for the bubble problem at the end, besides contributing.
see, this sump which is on the gym tank has water going over and then under to the return area.
img_1395955_0_e80fcf8a0c08d504d3a7320e39f4fb1c.jpg
 
So say I go this route and re-do the sump (again, sigh). I will now have a 1200 gph return pump. I think it may be a bit much for the drain of the 90g tank but I really don't know. It has a mag 7.5 running on it now but it doesn't seem like enough (but it doesn't overflow).

I would still like to use this pump if possible. If it is returning too much water can I just put a T in there and have it dump some of the water back into the sump? Would that be bad?

EDIT: Then again the mag is only having to pump up about 2.5' currently and with my setup it will have to pump up about 5.5'.
 
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