Skimmer question

[strout]

When I bought my tank, I made the wrong assumption that, if I walked into the LFS store and bought a SW tank complete set-up, Live rock, salt all the stuff you need to get started, that the owner would bring the tank, sump and all the stuff and set it up for me, guess I was wrong. Now I am not talking about lights and stuff like that, I am just talking tank, sump and plumbing. To most this would seem like an easy thing to do, but if you had never saw a tank with the plumbing done or a sump with a skimmer running in it, see what I mean. Anyway, I have the plumbing done, I have asked the LFS guy how to install the skimmer and I still don't have a clue. This is what I have, The water drains into the sump from a pipe in the tank down into the sumps first divided chamber, this chamber dosnt go all the way to the bottom of the sump , its raised a couple of inches off the bottom, the water goes under this first chambers wall and into another chamber thru a spounge this second chamber has a wall in it that is about half as high as the total height of the sump let me also say these first two chambers are small. The water goes over the top of this second chambers wall and into the biggest chamber of the sump, this chamber has a pump in it that pumps the water back into the tank thru a tube that goes up thru the second hole cut into the tank. I am also guessing that this is where my Skimmer will reside. Herein lies my confussion,lol. The skimmer sits in this last chamber and draws its water thru a pump, does its little skimming thing and then discharges the waste into a cup at the top of the skimmer, the water that has been skimmed comes out of the skimmer into a tube that comes out of the skimmer then turns towards the bottom of the sump. it dosn't go all the way to the bottom, just about half way, where the water comes out of this hose and mixes with the rest of the water in the this big chamber of the sump. Is this how it works??? Its just seems to me that the pump that returns the water to the tank should also be in a chamber by its self and that the skimmed water coming out of the skimmer thru that tube should drain into that chamber instead of being deluded back into the chamber with water that hasnt been skimmed. Someone help me understand, please.

 

[strout]

I went to a LFS today and he took the time to show me how it worked. I was messed up, thinking that the sump should have another chamber where the water from the skimmer went into and in that chamber would be the pump that returned water back to the tank. Seemed to me that a skimmer discharge back into the same chamber as the skimmer would be, well, kinda stupid, lol.