If someone in your area made custom sumps

I am curious to hear what everyone has to say on this. If someone in your local area designed and built custom sumps would you buy them? I know one of my LFS sells acrylic sumps for mid to upper 200's, what if these custom sumps made by a fellow hobbyist were half that cost would that interest you?

 

Definitely. Being new to the hobby, my husband and I checked all our lfs for sumps (the ones premade weren't what we were looking for (had bioballs etc) and custom ones were too expensive), looked online to find people making them (shipping was too high) and checked craigslist for someone to make one or one someone was selling for cheap, couldn't find anything. Ended up going with an Aqueon just because it was what we were looking for and it was put together already. I'd say the demand would be pretty high for people who want to join the hobby but have no clue what they're doing when they start

 

It all kind of depends on the sump design and quality to me, the bashsea sump/fuge that i recently bought from reefworks cost about 600$ but its worth every penny especially for the quality of work that i got.

 

The lfs I work for offers this service, and they sell like crazy. it's gray for people who lack the confidence to do it themselves, but I think your biggest hurdle will be getting the word out that you do it. We have the advantage of a store front that sees a lot of reef traffic. You might even consider working with an lfs. They could take orders for you and get a percentage.

Michael Rice
Marine Engineers Aquarium Blog
Sent from Tapatalk so excuse my poor English

 

That sounds like a really good idea

 

I was going to initially ask a few LFS's to see if they would be interested after I have created the first one so they can see build quality. And I will most likely have to check into the regulations that would govern this on a business level. I recently got off active duty Navy and am now going to school for aero engineering and have time to kill so I would be able to hand build probably 1 a week. I would offer a extensive warranty for the product and will pre build sumps but also willing to take designs and custom build for individuals. Its just a idea at this point but I think it would be a great way to fund this expensive hobby. Not to mention I think I can provide a much more reasonably priced product.

 

I say go for it. if you were in our area and brought one in, we would most likely say yes.

Michael Rice
Marine Engineers Aquarium Blog
Sent from Tapatalk so excuse my poor English

 

I'm a big fan of custom acrylic sumps, made to exactly the desired specs/dimensions.

 

So thus far it sounds as though the idea may be a relatively accepted one

 

As long as you build quality (not doubting you would) I think it would be a great business venture. Myself also getting back into the hobby lookre for morea affordable quality products. Welcome back to the civilian world btw great isn't it?