Of course my first post had to be asking for opinions. :| Hopefully, I can be forgiven. 
I'll make the story quick. Bought the first aquarium(10 gallon) for the kids for Christmas. Bought a few cute fish all at the same time with no research whatsoever. One of those was an Oscar. Obviously, a couple fish disappeared and one got big...FAST. Since I was on a budget, I kept scouring Craiglist til I found a bigger tank I could transfer the O to. Found and bought a 75 a couple of months ago.
Everything has been fine but I've been thinking about a couple of tankmates for the O. I know the 75 is small and adding a couple more fish could technically overstock it so I ended up buying a 20 gallon long tank to make into a wet/dry filter and sump. I've been overloading my brain researching all sorts of designs for this.
Current setup is 75 gallon with a single Oscar(approx 8 months old). Pea gravel, a few rocks from a Tennessee river, and a java fern and some star moss. Emperor 400 HOB. Temp @ 78. Ph has been around 7.6-7.7 every time. No nitrites or ammonia. And between 10-20 ppm Nitrates(hard to tell due to color chart). 15-20% water change once every 10 days or so.
This is the first design. Wet/dry. Water comes in on right. The pink is a piece of UG filter. The Blue on top is some sort of foam or sponge that will get suspended matter out of the water. Water rises up and spills onto a drip plate(lt green). Water then cascades onto bio balls or pot scrubbers. Water then goes into section 3 under the divider. The blue is another piece of sponge/foam to further filter out particulates. Finally, water rises up and over final divider into sump area which houses the heater and pump. Obviously, it's not drawn to scale. My original design was much more complex since I like to overengineer things so I decided to use something a little simpler. I like this idea ok but I started reading about nitrates and how to remove them with a refugium since it will allow anaerobic bacteria to live. I only have 2-3 inches of gravel in the main tank. So I designed this:
The sand will be several 4-6" deep providing plenty of depth for anaerobic bacteria to live(right?). And I'd have some plants here too.
Now I'm seeing people advise against sumps for planted tanks. I don't know how many plants constitutes a "planted tank" but if a sump will be a detriment to having plants do well, I may reconsider the idea. I can probably reduce the water agitation and go to a completely wet filter and remove the drip plate to compromise. Or if I really want plants, I might just add a CO2 setup.
So, this turned out to be longer than expected. I'll try to summarize what I want with these questions:
1) Which design is better for what I want? The fuge will give me an extra chance to lower Nitrate levels. And would be good for growing plants until they are big enough to plant in the main tank.
2) How much water should I keep in the sump section?
3) What size pump could I use?
Thanks for any help. I'll be checking in with the questions I forgot to ask.
I'll make the story quick. Bought the first aquarium(10 gallon) for the kids for Christmas. Bought a few cute fish all at the same time with no research whatsoever. One of those was an Oscar. Obviously, a couple fish disappeared and one got big...FAST. Since I was on a budget, I kept scouring Craiglist til I found a bigger tank I could transfer the O to. Found and bought a 75 a couple of months ago.
Everything has been fine but I've been thinking about a couple of tankmates for the O. I know the 75 is small and adding a couple more fish could technically overstock it so I ended up buying a 20 gallon long tank to make into a wet/dry filter and sump. I've been overloading my brain researching all sorts of designs for this.
Current setup is 75 gallon with a single Oscar(approx 8 months old). Pea gravel, a few rocks from a Tennessee river, and a java fern and some star moss. Emperor 400 HOB. Temp @ 78. Ph has been around 7.6-7.7 every time. No nitrites or ammonia. And between 10-20 ppm Nitrates(hard to tell due to color chart). 15-20% water change once every 10 days or so.
This is the first design. Wet/dry. Water comes in on right. The pink is a piece of UG filter. The Blue on top is some sort of foam or sponge that will get suspended matter out of the water. Water rises up and spills onto a drip plate(lt green). Water then cascades onto bio balls or pot scrubbers. Water then goes into section 3 under the divider. The blue is another piece of sponge/foam to further filter out particulates. Finally, water rises up and over final divider into sump area which houses the heater and pump. Obviously, it's not drawn to scale. My original design was much more complex since I like to overengineer things so I decided to use something a little simpler. I like this idea ok but I started reading about nitrates and how to remove them with a refugium since it will allow anaerobic bacteria to live. I only have 2-3 inches of gravel in the main tank. So I designed this:
The sand will be several 4-6" deep providing plenty of depth for anaerobic bacteria to live(right?). And I'd have some plants here too.
Now I'm seeing people advise against sumps for planted tanks. I don't know how many plants constitutes a "planted tank" but if a sump will be a detriment to having plants do well, I may reconsider the idea. I can probably reduce the water agitation and go to a completely wet filter and remove the drip plate to compromise. Or if I really want plants, I might just add a CO2 setup.
So, this turned out to be longer than expected. I'll try to summarize what I want with these questions:
1) Which design is better for what I want? The fuge will give me an extra chance to lower Nitrate levels. And would be good for growing plants until they are big enough to plant in the main tank.
2) How much water should I keep in the sump section?
3) What size pump could I use?
Thanks for any help. I'll be checking in with the questions I forgot to ask.
I know I have a LOT to learn though.