I'm proud to announce my first DIY sump/fuge :)

[wojo]

Hey guys,
After much reading and such here she is, made it from 20L tank, total cost ~ $120 with the pump (MAG5).

Please excuse the wiring, thats the next thing on my list Also since this is a wide open metal stand i need to cover this beautiful mess...

What do you guys think

 

[toxqc]

that actualy look nice, Hope I can do as good as you this week, I'M doing mine also

 

[wojo]

thanks man, good luck, it isn't actually that hard, it looks much harder

 

[inlandreef]

That looks great!!! Hope I can do that good when I build mine

 

[6Speed]

Looks great man! I am planning out a 30g sump right now. Hope it looks as clean as yours!

For the wiring, check out one of these. I love mine, and my only complaint is that I didn't order 2!

 

[melev]

Very nice.

 

[albert2k]

looks nice.

 

[sr71pav]

What are the dimensions for each chamber?

 

[wojo]

Thank you guys for kind words,

sr71pav, going from the right, 5" for 'from tank' / skimmer chamber (skimmer is outside, pump inside), 1" for 2 buffles, ~12" fuge, 2" for 3 buffles, and 5" for return pump chamber. Short buffles are 8" tall. Longer buffles are going almost all the way to the top so i can rest the light on them

I bought precut acrylic sheets (14" x 10") @ Home Depot, so i only had to cut few inches from both sides as opposed to buying big sheet, i think its more handy

 

[sr71pav]

Thanks for the info, I'm also planning a 20L fuge and need all the help I can get!

 

[wojo]

no problem, hit me up if you have any questions...

 

[cateyes]

looks great..
i'm going to be putting a 20L under my established 75 to get rid of some of the equiptment in the display....

i've got a couple of questions.....what skimmer are you using?? is that an aqua lifter on top of your light strip?? if so, what is it hooked to?
thanks

 

[wojo]

i am using Coralife Super Skimmer 125 gallon verision. and yes, its an aqua lifter on the light, it's connected to a CPR CS50 overflow hanging on the back of my tank, its to keep the air out out the siphon... to tell you the truth i could never get this overflow to loose its siphon when i turned off the pump but this $15 pump is well worth to prevent the potential problem

 

[Orochimaru]

neat, nice and clean. Simply perfect!

 

[harday]

wojo - I am in the process of trying to put together a sump myself. Probably the same size as I am getting a 58g RR oceanic. I got some great advice on this site. Your job looks really good. I have a question for you though. I thought I read on here that the return chamber is where the evaporation will be noticed. Can you shed any light on your experience with your set up? This confuses the hell out of me, as I can't figure out how evaporation wouldn't be equal throughout the sump. I won't have an auto top-off, and I travel a lot, so I am concerned about this issue. Your sump looks great though. .

 

[Fredy]

Nice clean job! looks good I just made one from a 40L fro my 210 and making a new one from a 29G for my 70 corner.

Check out www.melevsreef.com for some insight on refugiums and sumps. You might want to set up an auto top off since your return chamber is so small, or just swap your fuge chamber with your return chamber to help with evaporation.

Nice job again! looks really nice.

 

[wojo]

harday,

take a look at this image, it basically explains how my sump works:

the pump pushes the water to the tank, then as you can see water comes in from my overflow to the right chamber, where my skimmer is. flows through a baffle, enters fuge, then goes through 3 baffles, and finally enters return chamber. Notice the baffles in light green. the current water level on this picture is colored in orange.

so, evaporation will be noticed in the return chamber because thats where the pump is

my space was very limited thus a small return chamber and the point of building this thing was mainly the fuge due to my nitrates levels. with this setup i only have to refill the sump every other day, but i do plan to add auto top-off

hope this helps, also you should check the www.melevsreef.com like Fredy mentioned, Marc has samples of various sumps in there and he is considered a sump guru over here

 

[Roger'sReef]

me likes!!

 

[shouldabenacowboy]

Nice job......and it's pretty too!

SBC

 

[melev]

Thanks for the kind words. I just seem to have an understanding how it all flows.

To explain the evaporation situation:

Water evaporates everywhere in your system. The surface of the tank, the inside of the overflow, the surface of the sump... every minute of every day, some of it is changing and joining the atmosphere. So why doesn't everything lower equally?

Because of the way the water is flowing. If you have 100g of water going through the system, and it evaporates 5g, you only have 95g of water left. The return pump will keep pushing water up to the tank, so the tank stays full. Water overflows and goes down to the sump, so the skimmer section (and the refugium pictured above) stay full. The final compartment, called the return section, is what will be lacking those 5g of water.

Now if the tank evaporates a couple more gallons, it would be down to 93g of water total. At this point, the return pump is pretty much sitting in a 1" puddle of water. The pump is now sucking in air and no longer can pump water up to the tank. Which means the tank no longer can overflow any more water down to the sump, and the sump section will no longer have any extra water to pour over into the return section.

Let's say you left it like this for a few more days. Now the water in the main tank would drop in height, lower and lower than the overflow teeth. It would be obvious to your eyes.

The skimmer section would gradually lower as well as the refugium.

The pump would completely burn up and possible seize due to heat issues. Hopefully the circuit would trip before a fire started.

And if the circuit tripped, the tank would pretty much go dead, and now you've got a whole other issue: stagnant water. Do you really want me to continue with this line of thinking?

Now you should understand the flow and why evaporation only occurs visibly in the return section. Topping off daily avoids all these issues. And if you look around in this forum, there are threads about automatic top off devices that automate this feature so you don't have to dwell on it.