Sump to Tank Ratio

[Mackjr74]

I am a newbie to marine tanks. I have a 33 gallon fish only tank that has been up and running for a couple of months, but I am starting to think about my next tank. I currently have a 10 gallon sump/refugium on my existing tank, what size sump/refugium should I use with a 75 gallon display tank?

 

[Potatohead]

Typically about 1/4 - 1/3, but you can't really go too big either. More water volume is always better.

 

[thegrun]

In general as big as possible. If the sump is going to be inside your stand leave enough room for the equipment that does not go in the sump, but outside of that get as big of a sump as will fit in the stand.

 

[Mackjr74]

Thanks for the quick replies.

When looking at the volume of the sump, do I look at the amount of water that the sump is able to hold or the amount of water that will actually be in it?

 

[ca1ore]

I always shoot for a tank about half the size of the display. Figure it's half full, so holding about a fifth of the total water volume.

 

[Brianmil7516]

if you want to be exact for absolute minimum, you can divide your total tank volume by the height in inches to get a gallons per inch number. Depending on overflow placement you can figure out how many gallons are going to back fill with a power outage. Figure extra space for equipment from there. gotta have a place for the cool toys

 

[Ron Reefman]

I have a 65g shallow reef tank and a 25g frag tank tied together with a 125g sump/refugium. And a 125g mixed reef with a 50g refugium tank and a 40g sump.

 

[C Dog]

Bigger the better IMO

 

[jwalker314]

I always try to go as large as possible, some people even plumb those 300 gallon storage tanks into their system to increase water volume.

 

[lacybiker2000]

Although, I've been reef keeping for over 10 yrs, I've always had small tanks (29 gal and under, for the last 6 yrs have had a 29 gal with HOB fuge and a 5 gal nano). All of the plumbing has basically been plug and play HOB stuff, so easy.

Recently I bought a 55 gal cube tank with a 25 gal sump/fuge established/stocked. In storage I have a 75 gal RR tank which I have had trouble plumbing/building the sump on. (I know, I know there are YouTube vids but it's beyond me.) My goal is to upgrade to the 75 gal and sell the 55 gal cube.

My plan was to turn a 29 gal tall aquarium into the sump/fuge. However, this discussion leads me to consider if the 25 gal sump from the 55 gal would be adequate on the 75 gal tank.It would be so much easier to just migrate everything over.

Do you think it would work or be good until I can finally build the 29gal tall. The only difference is the tiny skimmer which came with the sump had broken right before I bought the system and the skimmer I was going to incorporate into the 29 gal is a monster (one of the reasons I'm having difficulty designing the sump).

PS-The BF doesn't think a tank needs a skimmer all the time...so I'm not sure on this part at all. He also doesn't see the need for the notches at the top of the weirs (I prefer them)...some of the factors preventing the completion of the build.