Plumbing My Chiller

[SkyReef]

I'm trying the pick the best place to route the return-line of my chiller. The chiller is fed by water from the first chamber of my sump. I propose two possible methods of routing the return water of my chiller to my sump: (1) I could send the chilled water back to that same, first chamber; or (2) I could send the chilled water to the last section of the sump (the return section), bypassing the "bubble trap," panel dividers, altogether. The design of the sump is the traditional, 3-panel sump, where water exiting the first chamber cascades over the first panel of the sump, down through an "under panel" divider (bubble trap), then rises up and over the third panel, into the return section. Water leaving the return section will go back to two aquariums above (a main tank and a dedicated, side-tank refugium).

Obviously, if I send warm water from the first chamber to the chiller, and that water is returned back to the first chamber, I run the risk of "looping" some cold water back to the chiller (because the output and input are in the same chamber). However, if I rearrange things, such that the warm water is sent from the first chamber and returned to last chamber (the return section), then this "looping" problem will be averted. However, doing it this way would mean that the chilled water would not be purged of micro-bubbles because, in jumping ahead to the return section of the sump, it would bypass the "bubble trap" panel. Another problem with routing the chilled water to the return section: sometimes, water would not make it through the protein skimmer on a given cycle through the sump. This is true because the protein skimmer is also situated in the first chamber. This sometimes-skimmed-and-sometimes-not-skimmed-water issue would arise because: (1) sometimes water draining into the first chamber (from the tanks above) would be sent off to the chiller before it had a chance to make it through the protein skimmer; yet (2) at other times, based on the random migration of water in the first chamber, some water would make it through the protein skimmer first, before it is sent to the chiller.

I read once that it is recommended that water be sent to the chiller from that last sump chamber (the return section), after it has already made it past the protein skimmer. However, I disagree. I need as much water-volume capacity in the return section of my sump as possible--which is also recommended. If I placed the chiller pump in the return section of my sump, it would take up a lot of room in the return section of my sump, which section is quite small in my setup. In that situation, there would be less water-volume capacity in the return section, due to the displacement of water-volume capacity by the pump. Also, given that a sump's return section is the only chamber where the water level rises and falls, due to evaporation, a chiller pump placed in the return section of the sump would not have a stable water column in which to operate. Accordingly, to reduce the risk of allowing the chiller pump to operate in too-shallow water (or run dry), I prefer to place the chiller pump in the first chamber of water, which has a high, stable water column. This leads us back to the original point: where to direct the water that is returning from the chiller. Based on the foregoing, I think it's probably better to have the return line go back to the first chamber, from where the water was originally sent to the chiller. While there may be some double-chilled water from some "looping" back to the chiller, it is the lesser of evils that would arise from sending and returning the chiller-water lines from the return section of the sump.

What do you think? Your help is most appreciated. Thanks.

[Amdeus]

Man im in same boat as you. lol