Need to quiet my over complex sump.

[NotThePainter]

'm new here, very experienced with fish keeping, as is my wife, Susan, we're not building a reef tank, but rather a cichlid tank, but I'm using a sump and you reefers know your sumps...

I have a 75 gallon tank with a single overflow that I got off of craigslist. It has a Pro Aquatics 150 under it. I hooked it all up and filled it. The sump was both noisy and for my needs, too small.

It was too noisy because of the water entering the sump into a down facing pipe with some holes and slits in it. I've replaced that with an upside down durso and I expect it to be much quieter once it is hooked up again.

It also only hold about 8 gallons, that's way too small for my plans so I dropped it into a 30 gallon I had sitting around making what has got to be one of the more overly complicated sump designs but, it its defense, it has required no modifications the the Pro Aquatics 150 OR the 30 gallon tank.

Here's how it sits now:

The "inner sump," as I'm calling it will operate almost completely full. The water enters into the entry chamber a with a reverse Durso arrangement. The water fills A, which will probably have some sea rocks for water buffering and flows out the top into B.

B used to be fill with bio-balls and you can see the blue drip tray at the top. I may or may not need that. B will have coarse through fine filter pads there laying on top of probably 2 or more liters of Seachem Matrix for bio filtration. Water exits B through the bottom.

C will also have some sea rocks for buffering and can serve as a temporary refugium if a fish is getting beat up too badly. Water exits C via an "infinity pool" type of overflow which, in testing, remains quiet for about a day. Once air starts getting under the water the flow switches, slowly, from laminar to turbulent and it gets really loud. Turning the pump on and off fixes this. I'm not happy with this right now but am struggling to think of a better way. You can see a close up of the infinity overflow here:

D is a small space which basically holds the water from C. Its prime purpose was to quiet the flow from C. I've tried the white filter pads but that was much noisier than the infinity pool setup. But C also serves to keep fish who jump from C from getting to E! Water flows to E down the sides of the inner sump and some flows under it. The inner sump is about 1/4 off the bottom supported by tiny aquarium sponges which only serve to keep the glass from getting scratched from any small bits of gravel that are there.

E just has the return pump to the 75 gallon tank, not back into the sump like we see above! It is a ViaAqua 3600 which does about 1,000 gph and consumes 85 watts. My target was 750 gph so this is fine. I'm not happy with the 85w, I'd love to halve that but googling around doesn't make that seem likely. I'd also like to quiet this down some but putting it on the filter pad really helps. E can also contain sea rocks if I need them.

'd love to hear some comments or criticisms of the system. I'd especially love to about how to permanently quiet the over flow from C to D.

Thanks!

 

[IanWR]

Personally I would reconsider the sump within a sump concept as both unnecessarily complicated and a nightmare to clean. You can add your own baffles to create the chambers you want.

Let's assume you go with what you have. First, if possible I would change your overflow to a herbie (or bean if you have 3 drains). With no bubbles coming into your sump from the overflow you eliminate noise in addition to bubbles. Second, regarding the overflow from C to D you could reduce the noise by reducing the flow. If you need more movement within the tank, use a powerhead. Having a slower flow through your sump just gives the water more time with your filtration which is a good thing. You could accomplish this, and save on your energy, by going with a dc return pump like a speedwave.

 

[NotThePainter]

Personally I would reconsider the sump within a sump concept as both unnecessarily complicated and a nightmare to clean. You can add your own baffles to create the chambers you want.

Let's assume you go with what you have. First, if possible I would change your overflow to a herbie (or bean if you have 3 drains). With no bubbles coming into your sump from the overflow you eliminate noise in addition to bubbles. Second, regarding the overflow from C to D you could reduce the noise by reducing the flow. If you need more movement within the tank, use a powerhead. Having a slower flow through your sump just gives the water more time with your filtration which is a good thing. You could accomplish this, and save on your energy, by going with a dc return pump like a speedwave.

Thanks, never thought about cleaning it! I can cut glass but I'm really bad at cutting acrylic, so that's why I went with what I had. I can't see how to get water into the sump w/o drilling the 30 gallon and I'm not sure I want to do that to the tank.

I'll look into a Herbie. I know about Bean's and wanted to do that to a bare 75 but when the overflow tank showed up on craigslist I grabbed it. It only has 2 holes, 1 in, 1 out.

And yes, reducing the pump will help, but I guess it is a cichlid thing, I keep on hearing "10x the water volume per hour" so I can ask about that over there. That would reduce noise and power at the same time. Both wins.

Thanks!

 

[NotThePainter]

Hmmm, now that I think about it more, why do I even need to clean out the sump? I guess over time slime might build up there. I know I'll need to clean my mechanical filter media but that just pulls out. I guess if I do keep a fish down there I'd want some light which would cause algae to grow and of course then I'd need to clean the fish wastes...

But is this really an issue? (Note, the answer may be different for fresh water and a reef tank!)

 

[IanWR]

With the glass tank I would use glass baffles, so you wouldn't have any acrylic in the sump. As for getting water in, your drain line(s) just go into the first chamber. There is no need for bulkheads, so you won't have to drill the sump.

If your tank has 2 holes in the overflow you could use both of those for the herbie and run your return over the top.

When you say you want 10x water, do you mean through the sump, or just water movement? If it is water movement that can be accomplished by powerheads in the tank. 10x through the sump is not required. Most freshwater tanks use just 1 cannister filter, and no where near that much goes through a cannister. You can think of the sump as a large, open cannister filter.

As for keeping a fish in chamber C, you don't need a light. They can function fine for a bit in the dark.

I know some people don't mind a dirty sump, but I am of the opinion that keeping things clean is a good thing. I vacuum out the buildup I find in the sump as part of water changes. Why add extra pollution when it's so easy to remove?

 

[NotThePainter]

With the glass tank I would use glass baffles, so you wouldn't have any acrylic in the sump. As for getting water in, your drain line(s) just go into the first chamber. There is no need for bulkheads, so you won't have to drill the sump.

I guess I'm concerned about breaking the glass if I bump the pump or some of the pipes against it.

If your tank has 2 holes in the overflow you could use both of those for the herbie and run your return over the top.

I did google it, cool idea. But then I have to have a pipe on top of the tank for the return, not sure I like that idea. Then again, it wouldn't be a very big or obvious pipe and it does get much less air into the sump since I could then use the herbie.

When you say you want 10x water, do you mean through the sump, or just water movement? ... 10x through the sump is not required.

I spent a lot of my lunch hour rereading cichild (Mbuna) forums. Almost everyone is saying they 8-10 times the tank volume per hour for filtration. But... almost everyone is using a pair of canisters or some HOB filters. You usually only see a sump on a huge tank so I am breaking new ground here.

However, my powerhead is putting out > 1000gph so I could get a smaller one and have less flow and therefore less noise.