Planning on building a sump, but have no idea were to start

[festaedan]

Hey guys
I'm picking up a nice 300 wide that my lfs ordered in a few weeks. The tank is reef ready so I thought, why not build a sump. The stock (when I set it up) will be my 8-9" male marble motoro stingray, my 6-7" female bd hybrid, and my 8" silver aro and possibly my 8 cichla pinima if he isnt sold by then. Eventually, I plan to have 3-5 rays, the silver aro, a school of red hooks, and probably some other kind of characin or a larger catfish. Either way, I'm gonna need a pretty efficient filtration system.
So my question is, what size sump would I need? The future stock for that tank (minus my arowana) currently resides in my 120 wich is filtered by 6 rena xp3s and an ehiem 2260 and I was planning on just moving those canisters over to the 300 but I would like to setup a sump. What size sump would I need if I plan on keeping the ehiem and one of the xp3s? What media would work best? How big do my overflows need to be? What kind of pump would I need?
Thanks

 

[millerkid519]

Me personally I would use your 120 as your sump. Big sump is never a bad idea and as for media it all depends on your budget for media. Do you want submerged, emerged, or fluidized that's the first thing to figure out. A lot of people run jebao dc 12000 pumps which run 3100 or so gph at 0 head.

 

[monkeybike]

I agree that the 120 would make a sweet sump. I have a 180 and use a 40 breeder as a sump. I have a large sterilite tower section as my bio tower with both overflows running into bulkhead fittings in the top. I cut a section of pvc pegboard for a drip tray. The drawer holds approximately 10 gallons of bio balls. I run two 300 watt heaters in the sump via a Ranco controller. My return pump is a Quiet One 6000. I also run 2 sunsun canisters for mechanical filtration, an hw302 and an hw304.

 

[millerkid519]

I have the same pump I hear that the jebao pump is less noises and it's more powerful for mechanical that's all.
Mine is 25l of k1, 10 gallons bio balls,7 kg of biohome ultra so I have a little of everything but have a build in progress that will be running 100 scrubies and 3kg of biohome it's all I what works best for your setup and what you want.

 

[millerkid519]

Any updates?

 

[festaedan]

Sorry, I forgot to click the "watch thread" button and assumed no one responded
The stand is way to short to fit my 120 with room for plumbing. I really like the sterolite tub idea but since the stand is so short, I just couldnt fit it so I picked up a 40 breeder since it was just about the only tank I could fit with ample space to work.
I'm also filtering the tank with 8 rena xp3s with the sump.
The tank/sump isnt in my house yet but I'll post updates of it in my thread for the 300
Thanks for the help though, if I ever upgrade the sump and put it next to the tank so hight isnt an issue, I'll defenitely go with the sterolite tub.