Ideal is a basement with a concrete floor, floor drain, and utility sink. Every item of that makes life much easier, but it's still possible to isolate the noise of the pump from the room upstairs where the dt is, which is one really big advantage of a basement setup. You can access everything very easily.
I set up a dinged up bargain 100 gallon stand for a 30 gallon sump, and for a top---I used a piece of old kitchen countertop. Sturdy, absolutely cleanable, tough as nails.
To get your lines to the basement, you have to do some math and calculation, because you need to take two adequate lines through your upstairs flooring (hole saw blade on drill) and get hose through those and through your basement ceiling, if 'finished ceiling' down there. You need to support them without any right angle bends (hose is better than pipe for this, because pipe, if you get cavitation (uneven flow with air in it) it can sound like somebody's hammering down there. Hose bends where you need it and goes where you want it---which is into a pretty high intensity fall into your sump. Your return hose should have a pump that can handle about 10 to 20 feet of head (rise) without wheezing. I use an external Iwaki 100 (gph 2300) that sounds like a 737 revving for takeoff, but nobody cares down there. You DO need a gate valve in that line so you can adjust the flow.
You CAN do this kind of setup in a closet adjacent to or behind your upstairs tank, if your main thing is having a place where you can deal with a large skimmer, do water changes, and somewhat soundproof the operation. In this case your two holes go through the wall.
Neither does great violence to a house: you can spackle over the closet, or do some floor repair: 1 or so inch hole is not a devastation.
It's a dream of a setup if you have the place to do it. Makes so many things easier. I do my water changes from and to the sump, drain it down, fill it, pump it up. And I have good lighting and a counter to do the tests, etc.
I set up a dinged up bargain 100 gallon stand for a 30 gallon sump, and for a top---I used a piece of old kitchen countertop. Sturdy, absolutely cleanable, tough as nails.
To get your lines to the basement, you have to do some math and calculation, because you need to take two adequate lines through your upstairs flooring (hole saw blade on drill) and get hose through those and through your basement ceiling, if 'finished ceiling' down there. You need to support them without any right angle bends (hose is better than pipe for this, because pipe, if you get cavitation (uneven flow with air in it) it can sound like somebody's hammering down there. Hose bends where you need it and goes where you want it---which is into a pretty high intensity fall into your sump. Your return hose should have a pump that can handle about 10 to 20 feet of head (rise) without wheezing. I use an external Iwaki 100 (gph 2300) that sounds like a 737 revving for takeoff, but nobody cares down there. You DO need a gate valve in that line so you can adjust the flow.
You CAN do this kind of setup in a closet adjacent to or behind your upstairs tank, if your main thing is having a place where you can deal with a large skimmer, do water changes, and somewhat soundproof the operation. In this case your two holes go through the wall.
Neither does great violence to a house: you can spackle over the closet, or do some floor repair: 1 or so inch hole is not a devastation.
It's a dream of a setup if you have the place to do it. Makes so many things easier. I do my water changes from and to the sump, drain it down, fill it, pump it up. And I have good lighting and a counter to do the tests, etc.
