Comments on my DIY aquarium sump

[theedudenator]

I bought some used items, now I am trying to improve and make them work.

This is a 30gal glass tank used for the sump
I have a 120gal tank that I will put a 600gph overflow on

See the pics, this is the plan.

I am not sure how high to make the dividers? Is there a rule of thumb on this?

I plan on 1" between the bubble baffles, but I do not know how high to make them.
I plan on using lexan for the baffles

Suggestions please!!!

 

[greenstarman]

I'm new to sumps. I just finished one myself made from acrylic. Is that a power head in your skimmer area? Other wise looks like it will work. Same design that at used for mine.

 

[jaeden]

One idea is to make your baffles a height that if there is a power outage water drains back into the sump without over flowing , that's the way I planned mine refuge on left ,return in middle good luck

 

[dngspot]

I made this one out of a 20L. The power head is in the pump compartment, and it works great with no heat issues. I keep small fan over the pump to keep things cool.

 

[latazyo]

great set up jaeden

I would recommend going with a jaeden style set up with your pump in the middle and skimmer and fuge on opposite ends

 

[theedudenator]

dngspot - it seems like your baffles are near the top of the tank?

How will water flow over them?

 

[theedudenator]

jaeden -
If your refuge is on your left and your return is in the middle, then your skimmer must be on the far right?

The refuge will only be recieving skimmed water?
I thought you wanted some of your take overflow to go direct to the refuge?

 

[greenstarman]

Looks like he has a gap at the bottom on the longer ones.

 

[greenstarman]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7955581#post7955581 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by latazyo
great set up jaeden

I would recommend going with a jaeden style set up with your pump in the middle and skimmer and fuge on opposite ends

Why is it wrong to send skimmed water to the fuge. You would have to have one mighty and capable skimmer to skim all that water prior to going into the fuge. There is no way a skimmer is going to come into contact with all of that water in the skimmer area. I can't see why location would matter. Can you explain your idea or thoughts.

Thanks.

 

[Driftwood]

I'm not a huge fan of having the middle chamber for a return. It is nice if you have a ton of flow and it is too much for the fuge to handle, but under 600GPH is fine.

I built my sump out of an old 30 long. Here is a picture just after I set it up.

There is a HOB filter sort of in the way. It was only there for a few weeks to build up bacteria for another tank. It looks quite a bit different now with the LR rubble and stuff, but you can at least see the layout. The return pump is a Mag9.5 and the sand in the middle is kolorscape from HD.

 

[latazyo]

el duderino, the fuge's baffle is higher than the rest, so no water can flow into it, only out of it, to do a set up like that you have to split your drain line, one goes to the skimmer and one goes to the fuge (usually with a ball valve) this allows you to control the flow through the fuge, since you usually want it to be slow....also the baffles that go to the top of dngspot's sump are under baffles, water flows under them


greenstarman, its only a matter of personal preference, just like driftwood said, if flow is very high (in my case it is) so I use the center return method....if your flow is not high, as mentioned there is nothing wrong with having a center fuge...I dont think that only sending skimmed water to the fuge is a bad thing, because obviously the skimmer cant get every bit of it, but at least make sure you dont skim after the fuge

 

[greenstarman]

But doesn't high flow defeat the purpose of a refuge. Not enough contact time?

Not trying to pick on you... don't take it that way. I just like to know everyones reasoning.

Thanks

 

[30mini]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7957237#post7957237 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by greenstarman
But doesn't high flow defeat the purpose of a refuge. Not enough contact time?

You are right on the money here! You want slow turnover in the fuge for the purpose of contact time! You can have two drains, like was suggested, and just have a ball valve going to the fuge to let less flow go to it, and the bulk go to the skimmer area! That would be an easy set up, and easily controlled!

 

[latazyo]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7957192#post7957192 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by latazyo
to do a set up like that you have to split your drain line, one goes to the skimmer and one goes to the fuge (usually with a ball valve) this allows you to control the flow through the fuge, since you usually want it to be slow

I must not have explained very well

for example, in my set up I'm doing a 1 1/4" drain from my tank, this then goes into a T and one side of the T goes undisturbed into the skimmer compartment, the other side of the T goes to the fuge, but it is reduced all the way down to 1/2" pipe AND it has a ball valve so I can make the flow very slow through the fuge, then it drains into my sump...here is a rough sketch

in my example, my fuge is a separate tank that is located above the sump, because of this I have additional room in the sump for more baffles, extra media/live rock if I want, etc etc etc

 

[Driftwood]

Can someone explain to me what the importance of contact time is in a fuge?

 

[30mini]

To allow the Macro algea to get all the stuff out of the water that it can! If it is flowing too fast, your water will not be nearly as clean coming out as if it was flowing slow!

 

[Driftwood]

Wouldn't the Macro take in the same ammount of nutrients reguardless of the flow rate? Wouldn't more flow mean more nutrients moving past the Macro?

 

[latazyo]

good point on the nutrients driftwood,

I always thought that the slow flow was to
1. avoid stirring and kicking up the sand in your fuge since they're usually quite small
2. avoid sweeping up too many of the microorganisms (although the point of a fuge is to pick up some)

I think the main point is to just have a low flow through it so that you dont pick up sand and other crap and send it through your return pump

 

[greenstarman]

Since a skimmer isn't 100% efficient some of the detrious can't be skimmed out. Therefore the living creatures in the live rock will break this down. If to much flow is present in the fuge how will the creatures be able to effectivly break it down. Thats the way I look at it.

 

[dngspot]

I run 1700 gph through a 50 gallon refigium. I have a lot of little critters living in the macro algae. The sand has never moved from the refigium compartment to the pump compartment, I have a 4 inch sand bed. I can not see what the benefit of slowing down the water would do. This pump has been on this unit for two years. The reason that I installed the refigium was a bad outbreak of cyno. 1 month after the installation of the refigium and the cyno was gone. My nitrates fell to 0 from 40 ppm and has remained there. I have a heavy load in my 150G reef tank and the refigium with the high flow has not failed keeping up.

In my earlier post the high baffles are lifted up 1.5 inches from the bottom. The lower baffles are to the floor and are 12 inches high. This is the water level for the whole sump. I keep the water in the pump chamber as high as the lower baffles also. There is no water fall in my sump, this reduces bubbles.