What am I missing?

I think a 40 gallon would treat you right. I can say I top off 5 gallons every third day with a large sump on my tank although 220 gallon display I think if you went with 10-20 your doing to be doing daily top offs.

 

hmmm. was hoping to save a little on the sump size. But I'll take the advise from the senior hobbiests here and go with a larger one.

My goal (if i can manage it) is to DIY as much of this project as I can without compromising the quality/health of the echosystem it contains.

I'll be doing my FBF, Skimmer, and overflow as DIY.

Working the neurons for sure!

 

There are lots of folks who DIY sumps... it seems like a pain to do it right, but if you're up for it, you can research and build your own...

 

I totally agree. I designed the red sea sump I have but had it made by another co for simplisity. It makes sence to have it done for you. the pros make it happen.

 

^^ Very true unless you have limited space and want to customize to maximize space. I wish I had the space to buy one already ready, but since I had a little space, I built to make as big as possible.

If you ever need help DIY sump from scratch hit me up, I spent 3 months preparing and finalizing plans so I could help out

 

I might end up doing that K3rack.

Right now I have a cramped space for my sump, filter, and skimmer.
I'm gonna be building the filter and skimmer both from scratch.

I'm trying to find a way (within budget) to maximize the size of my sump.
I even thought about using a rubbermade container. That's why I wanted to used the 10 gallon because it fits where I need it to go.

The maximum size for a sump that I can work with is about 17.5W x 36L x 24H in inches. This comes out to roughly 60 gallons, but it's quite an odd tank demention.

I went to PetSmart the other day and they we're selling 10g tanks for $15. This seemed like a good idea but i never got one because I'm still in the design phase of my project.

K3rack what are the specifics on your DIY sump?