The old terrapin tank sounds like a good idea.
A friend drills holes in a plastic bucket or two, puts mechanical media over lava rock as biomedia, and hangs or sets it over his sumps where water drains to the sump, to save space in the sump for equipment.
Below, one of my barrel sumps during a water change, the socks were used for mechanical.
In the closer pic below, you can see a heater in the bottom, and pipes where the pump also sits on the bottom.
I usually put bio-media in mesh bags so its easy pull out during water changes, to rinse excess gunk off.
A friend drills holes in a plastic bucket or two, puts mechanical media over lava rock as biomedia, and hangs or sets it over his sumps where water drains to the sump, to save space in the sump for equipment.
Below, one of my barrel sumps during a water change, the socks were used for mechanical.
In the closer pic below, you can see a heater in the bottom, and pipes where the pump also sits on the bottom.
I usually put bio-media in mesh bags so its easy pull out during water changes, to rinse excess gunk off.
