Freshwater sump for 350 gallon tank

[ColumbiaWaterGardens.com]

Ask me anything about ponds and I'll nail your question most of the time, but when it comes to freshwater sumps, I'm afraid I need a little guidance.

A while ago I inherited a 300 gallon aquarium with a 40 gallon sump. Yep, free.

Now, before anyone gets excited, I'm not going to give it away, it sits in the showroom of my store, and its there to stay. Here's the problem. It's the sump and tower setup. I followed the prior setup and reinstalled everything based on the way I got it, and I know there are fundamental errors in the way it's set up.

Here we go...
Two towers, each with a dual bulkhead. One for drain, and the other for return. Towers filled with bio media to sump,
Sump flow as follows.... Drain to rectangular box filled with large bio balls half submerged and the other half dry.....to large chamber filled with K1 bio media..... Through a dual divider stuffed with fine mechanical filtration..... To the pump chamber with a submersible mag drive..... To the returns in the tower via spray jets.

Issues, nitrate spikes. That's it.... Oh, and it looks ugly. I want sexy and functional. Something for customers to ooh and awe over.

I'll get pictures next time I go to the store... Likely tomorrow.

Please send me pics, suggestions, and if there's anyone in the local area to my store, please come by if you can.

I'll take your advise, and post pics both here and on my Facebook page.

Thanks very much for your expert advise,

Carl Petite

 

[ColumbiaWaterGardens.com]

Anyone?

 

[pacu mom]

What do you mean by "towers"? Are you talking about overflow boxes? If you have overflow boxes, all the plumbing can be hidden under the canopy.

here are two tanks from MidwestCustomAquariums Photo Gallery:


Even with the overflow box right in the middle of the tank, you can still have an esthetic looking tank



As far as nitrate spikes, if your tank is cycled and you have ammonia 0, nitrites 0, you either have too heavy of a bioload, or you need to do larger more frequent water changes, or add plants.

 

[Jc1119]

Not sure what nitrate spike means in your situation. What are the readings? I run a 75 gallon sump on my 300 thats pretty invisible. page 3 in the build in my sig has some close ups.