All about Sumps Filters and Fuges

This is great, really helped me understand the complete relationship of sump and refug. going from a 28 gallon nano cube to a 180 gal tank has me doing massive research on the setup i need and this site has been a great resource.

 

Great write-up. Added to favorites. K+

 

where was this when " I " needed it !! ?? : ) LOL Great stuff.. K+

 

Please folks, I welcome anyone and everyone that made there own sump/fuge to post pics and share their input. My hope was for this to be a one stop shop for all the various builds and ideas out there.

Luna, I know you have a couple of pics. What are your thoughts on keeping Mangroves?

Sparky, I know you just built a beautiful one.

 

I purchased a 20L sump and baffled it out myself to save on cost and to fit my needs. Really has worked out well for me.

Full Sump Shot.
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Heres the baffles I added with my temp and ph probe in place.
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Return section with my ato sensor, return pump, ca/alk feed tubes (note: they arent timed to dose at same times), and my ato freshwater feed tube.
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Heres some media reactors daisy chained that I have PFO and carbon in. MaxiJet400 feeding them.
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I also have a titanium heater in my sump not pictured.

I will be adding a fuge to this tank soon here. Will post pics here when setup.

 

The sump for my 29 gallon consists of a 10 gallon glass tank and ~4 gallon acrylic refugium.

Drain section

Water moves from display to sump by way of CS50 overflow box. Drain section consists of a "Splash Box" that I built out of acrylic.



Skimmer Section:

The skimmer section was made using an acrylic divider siliconed into the tank. The purpose of this baffle is to maintain a constant 8" water level for the Precision Marine RL125 skimmer. Unfortunately I did not have enough room for a bubble trap, fortunately I do not currently have any problems with bubbles in the display. Also in the skimmer section is a heater, mesh bag of GAC, and GFO phosphate reactor. The reactor is fed by a Maxi-Jet 400, which is teed to also feed the refugium.



Return Section

The GFO reactor and refugium discharge into the return section as well as the skimmer section overflow. A Danner Mag 5 returns water to the display and is throttled by a TLF 3/4" ball valve. The blue tape is the evaporation top-off level.



Refugium

The refugium is a DIY acrylic box with approximately 4 gallon capacity. Refugium runs a 5" deep sand bed, small chunk of live rock with caulerpa growing on it, and soon a ball of chaeto. Refugium is fed off T from MaxiJet in skimmer section. Lighting is provided by a "daylight" (5000K) compact fluorescent indoor flood light. Refugium also has its own heater.




The whole thing:

 

Excellent guys. Thanks a lot.

 

I have no idea how I missed this thread. Excellent write up, Kevin!!

My sump is pretty straight forward. It's a 20 long. Filter sock on the incoming chamber, which houses the skimmer. My media reactor sits on the side of this first chamber too. Return chamber houses my float valve for the incoming ATO.

I'm using a 4 port manifold off my inline pump. One port is capped off for future use. The other three serve the return, reactor, and chiller. The return from the chiller comes back into the sump behind the skimmer to mix with the warm incoming water from the DT.













I took the advice from my Skimmer, Sump, Pump Build thread, and strapped down the top of the manifold, as there's a lot of weight on the motor, and it was suggested that this could cause premature wearing out of seals or bearings.

I used a single strand from a thick 250 kcmil conductor. This is the only copper allowed in a reef tank!!

 

Great artical... K+

 

I'd coat that with tool dip, It's a liquid vinyl used to rubberize tool handles and such. Also use stainless screws, rather than the drywall screws. You have done such a nice job & spent a good penny "no pun intended" ;D to let this haunt you later on. If all possible you can use stainless braided cable. That's what I used to make a custom handing system for my MH fixture.