for the people with sumps ;D

I am in the peocess of making a sumo for my 75 gallon tank, the total gallons on the sump are about 30 gallons.

the fuge part will be on the right side and the deminsions are 15.5x12x12= 7.6 gallons

the skimmer section on the left side will be 10.5x12x14 3/4= 9.6 gallons

the return section in the middle will be 6 3/4x12x12= 3.7 gallons

2 water lines will run to the sump,one to the righ and one to the left LOL.

some of my questions are, should some of the compartments be bigger, smaller, ext.should I make brackets in the bubble trap for filter pads, or other forms of mechnical filtration/ chemical filtration.

I read the stickey on the forum but want some feed back on what would you do diffrently now vs then and weigh my options.

TYIA ;D

 

Well with my sump ( I will link an image) I had a similar design. Skimmer on the left, fuge on the right, and return in the center. One thing I wish is that I would have built some sort of tray system to add chemical media or filter floss if I wanted to.

Also, I tried to have a split drain to the skimmer and fuge at different flow rates, but since I run a herbie overflow, it was too difficult to dial in the flow and keep it steady. What I ended up doing is dropping a very small pump in the middle section and have it pump water into the fuge. If you have the space and dont mind running an extra small pump, I recommend this rather than a split drain.





Also, when you set your water level in the center section of the sump (if you use an ATO) make sure you leave enough room so when the power goes out (or you unplug your skimmer and pump) the water that drains back down will not flood your sump. Sometimes when my herbie overflow slows down over time the water level in my overflow will rise and add a few more quarts of water to the total system, and I have had times when the power goes off or the GFCI trips and the water level is literally like 1 mm from the top of the sump. Luckily it has never overflowed but I do wish I had designed it a little differently (unfortunately I cant lower the water level in the sump lower because the pump would suck in air).

I dont thin kyou will have a much trouble because you are using a 30 gallon and my sump is 20 long. So you will have more height to work with.

 

One piece of advice I can give is to leave enough room between the baffles. I made my glass panels 1" apart and it is so hard to clean in between that every time I am facing the task, I keep putting it up for later, and when I finally get it done I say "i wish I would have made them 1.25" to 1.5" apart.

Another thing, the herbie overflow style or even better, the beananimal overflow is something I would do if the glass in your tank is not tempered glass. That will provide a very quiet system.

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+1 to this. I also wish I would have made my baffles slightly wider. Mine are about 1/2" apart. Luckily i haven't needed to clean in between them.
But with my next tank, I know where to improve on. As far as the overflow, I would never have anything other than a herbie or bean animal. Next time I think I will choose to install a bean animal. Too many times has a fish jumped into my overflow and been a PITA to get out. ;D

 

I would definitely make the return section larger. This is where you will see the effects of evaporation and 3.7 gallons may not even give you 24 hours without topping off. Before I added an ATO system to my 30G sump on a 100G display I was manually adding between 4 to 6 gallons every other day and it was a PITA. My return section can drop 8 gallons before the return pump starts to break suction and I would have made that section larger if I had to do it all over again. Yes I do have an ATO now but what happens if it craps out on me for some reason?
My main section size was mainly driven by the footprint of my protein skimmer and the depth it needed to operate best. I sold the Turboflotor I started with and now have an ASM G2 which has a larger diameter body but takes up less room since the pump sits sideways to the body versus sticking straight out like the Turboflotor.

I have 1.5" between the baffles so I can get an old Mag scraper magnet cleaner or long handled algae brush between them for cleaning.

 

I like the design, you didn’t touch on your plumbing so I will assume you are installing ball valves so you can adjust the flow to the fuge section.

I actually made my baffles one inch and I never ever clean them. I used black plexiglass in my refugium the reason is that it will block the light and prohibit unwanted growth in and around the baffles. I have coralline growth outside of the fuge in the other sections at a 45 degree angle (for the most part) where the light from the fuge shines above the black plexi. So there you go, my suggestions will be the black plexi for the inner fuge walls and of course the ball valve to moderate refugium flow.

....oh, and btw - if you don't post a picture, you never built it !!!!

 

lol thanks for all the feed back, the bubble trap lives are abou 2 inches apart since I only used 2 pices of glass not 3. I'm confused on how it loses that much water in the return section. I'm using aquarium glass for the baffles so i will def paint them black now lol

as far as the pluming goes yea ball valves but my idea was to split the drains since I'm using a overflow box. can't drill and I got the box for like 20 bucks lol.

ps I'll get pics up when i get home lol

 

The return section shows the effects of evaporation since the height of the water is controlled by baffles and the overflow in the tank and sump.

 

have been super busy with a busted pipe st the house so no pictures but have had a few minutes to rethink the sump, should I make the fuge smaller and make the return bigger?

Or can I seperate the pump with a small pice of glass just over 5-6 inches and use eggcrate to keep macro alges out of the return and just have a bigfuge/return while the water level would be at about 14 inches?

 

I built my sump almost identical to this. Also am going to run a small pump for the fuge for the same reason, I'm running a bean animal. I think this is a perfect setup.

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