90 gallon sump big enough for 500 gallon tank?

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J

jmetz32

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Sep 5, 2011
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Albany, Oregon
im going to build a 500 gallon cube for freshwater.
i was wondering if a 90 gallon sump with like 3 feet of bio-balls would be enough filtration?
or any better ideas on filtration?
thanks

also any ideas on heating?
 
i've heard that 1/4 of the tank size is the standard, some go bigger and some go smaller and add additional filters. it really is going to depend on what your stock is going to be.

as far as heating, if your doing a sump i'd put the heaters in the sump to keep them out of the tank. put as many as you need. just a couple 300w heaters should be more than enough. Eheim Jagers are great long lasting heaters
 
i got 2x300w eheim jagers on my 300, works a treat. Id guess 3 would do you nicely, tho there is probably cheaper options for a bigger heater.
The amount of bio you need will depend on your stock and how the filter is set up (wet/dry or submerged or something else), so cant really say if "3 feet" will be enough or if its overkill.
 
as for live stock, i was thinking large cichlids, arowanas, some tinfoils.. im not really sure yet. as for heaters, i was thinking a 1000w heater with controller? as for the sump, just 3 feet of submerged bio-balls with the water running through some carbon pad and other cloth first. think that will do the trick?
 
tank will have 4 drains with 1-1/2" holes/pvc pipes. so how ever much that drains? then i was going to run two external 4500 gph pumps. tank will have built in overflow inside tank with the 4- 1-1/2 in drains.
 
What are the dimensions of the tank going to be? The surface area times the water rise above the overflows will give you the overflow volume you are working with and have to worry about ending up in the sump during a pump outage.

Gut feeling says the 90 sump running at a 1 to 2 inch water level most likely won't overflow in a power outage... but that is just a gut feeling.

Have you considered a continuous water change system? The reason I ask is with a continuous water change system you usually tap the sump with an overflow to maintain a particular water level in the sump. While you are continuously adding water to the tank the extra water falls into the sump and the overflow from the sump goes down the drain (or into the lawn). With such a configuration it will work double duty, in a power outage the overflow from the sump will prevent flooding assuming you have an appropriate size overflow from the sump (i.e. 3/4 inch tubing not something small like air line tubing).
 
using the website listed above ^^^^^^^ this is what i got. i was unsure on height of water above overflow and the flow through sump?


Using the following input parameters

Tank Length = 60 inches
Tank Width = 60 inches
Height of Water above Overflow = 2 inches
Flow through sump = 4000 gph

Sump volume is calculated as

Sump Volume need to handle tank overflow = 31.2 Gallons
Recommended Minimum Volume for sump = 71.2 Gallons
 
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