what is a sump and how to make one

[jxr182]

Ok I've been in the wild world of saltwater aquaria for about a year now, but one thing i've never looked into is a sump. I just bought a 14 gallon nano a couple of weeks ago and one thing that bothers me is not being able to use my skimmer... it's a super skimmer 65 gallon, and while i have issues with it, i find it very efficient and would love to use it... so ...

i'm thinking of rerouting the water flow in my tank... it's a 14 gallon oceanic biocube. my thoughts are i can get a 10 gallon glass aquarium and put it under the stand in the cabinent. i can then run a tube from the pump in the biocube to the 10 gallon... from there i can have my protein skimmer running... then i can run another pump with tube back into the tank into the outlet valve built into the back of the tank...

am i missing something or is that pretty much all a sump is?

 

[SugarFox03]

A sump is pretty much an area thats not in your display tank where you can have your protein skimmer, uv sterilizer, reactors, etc...

I'm actually in the process of building my first sump/fuge after being in this hobby since April. I bought a 26g Bowfront and plan to use a 20 gal long tank (just decided that today, it was going to be a 10 gal, but wanted more space) for my sump. I plan on making a spot in there for a refugium as well.

 

[wingmans10]

Sump Ideas

 

[jxr182]

So it looks like you can set up a sump with just one pump... right? you could put the pump in your sump unit running into your aquarium, but how does the water go from you tank to your sump?

 

[jxr182]

ok i just realized that involves making siphons and such i don't think i want to deal with.. but i could still do it with two pumps, right?

 

[SugarFox03]

My tank & sump will be on the same level, and I will only have a return pump (hopefully). I will let gravity do its thing. Its not all that hard. I know something selling a complete overflow & sump set up for $60, its an awesome deal. I think he has it listed on this website in the for sale section.

 

[wingmans10]

you can make it work with 2 pumps BUT you will need some type of failsafe to ensure that if 1 pump fails, it doesn't pump all your water out and into the other tank, eventualy causing it to overflow.

 

[jxr182]

I'm thinking all of this is beyond me... so instead of a sump i'm thinking of something in the middle.

Next to my biocube i can sit my skimmer. I can remove the little pump from the biocube (which everyone seems to say is too small) replace it with my maxijet 1200...run the pump out of the tank with a hose into my skimmer, then have a hose run from the skimmer into the builtin overflow into that valve that puts the water back into the tank... that would be prety effective, right? and my skimmer being built for a larger aquarium probably holds two gallons itself.

And it would still have an enormous effect on the quality of my water, right?

And I've wondered, could i not have something growing inside of my skimmer? kinda like a mock fuge? It would have access to indirect sunlight and plenty of light coming from the aquarium (it would be siting next to the aquarium). with all the air bubbles and the amount of light, would it work?

 

[drjuice28]

Nope, wouldn't work. The turbulence and bubble action of the skimmer would prohibit it. Also, having material in there would cause your microbubble action to be pretty low quality. Not a plausible idea, sorry!

 

[jxr182]

well so i couldn't use it as a fuge... and for obvious reasons i should have figured outmyself... but there's still no reason why i couldn't hook up the skimmer to the tank as described above, right? maxijet 1200 in lieu of built in pump, running to skimmer, skimmer running to overflow in tank?