wana make a sump

I have a 75 gal tank, soon to be reef... I think a sump is in order. I can get my hands on a 40 gal tank, I was thinking of using that. too big? Should i use just a larg plastic bin? I was hoping somebody out there had some good vids, or blue prints to share.
thanks guys & happy new year!

 

bigger the better but if your puting it in the stand a 40 may be a problem . get the biggest you can but make shure it will fit and have enough room to house all your equipment

 

i dont like the way my stand is built... im afraid to build the sump under my tank. prolly guna build it next to my tank.

 

im setting up a 75 and am going to use a 55 gallon its thinner and still hold enough water for my current equipment. this sight has alot of helpful posts about building a sump, my only segustion is that if you run a protein skimmer and build a fuge is that you make the return in the middle IMO

 

you got to think about what you are going to be running in your fuge to decide how much flow you want in it (cheto needs a little more flow some times). Most people run more flow through their sump and less through their fuge (I know more or less is pretty vague statement). I personally am making my sump/fuge biger (10gskimmer section, 15 return/top off section, 40g fuge on 90g of DT) so that I might be able to use it if I wanted to for the next round of tanks:. I think your stoked if you can do a 33% fuge.

 

This is one design that I threw together. I ran something very close in a 30 Long.

 

just get a $10 plastic sump from home depot/wal-mart......here's what i did....

 

I like except move the return to the middle and use the left side as a fuge and that would be better IMO.

 

I have a 30g with a 10g sump/fuge in the stand. It's a little on the small size to do three compartments, but it works fairly well. I like the idea of plastic tub from walmart but then I wouldn't have been able to build a baffle for bubbles. If I could section off a plastic tub like I did the 10g I probably would have gone that route because you have more size options.

 

here is my 20g long before I hooked it up to my 45 tall. The returns in the middle with the overflow from the DT t'd off with a gate valve to the fuge to adjust flow.