Help me build/understand a basic sump, DIY overflow

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Moloch

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Sep 8, 2010
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Raleigh, NC
I just picked up a quietone 4000 pump. With some quick guestimate measurements I think I'll end up with about 6 feet of head. This is figuring 13" vertical to get out of the sump, another 5" or 6" horizontal to get out of the stand, about 42" to clear the top of the tank and about 5" or 6" to get the output in the tank where I want it.

According to lifeguard aquatics datasheet, the quietone 4000 will push 528gph through 6ft of head. I want to use the PVC overflow design shown at the bottom. According to chomper's sticky I'll need to use the horizontal flow rates to measure the GPH of the siphon side. By his chart, 1.5" pvc will give me 14.07gpm or 850.2gph.

If I'm looking at this right, then I should be able to build that overflow out of 1.5" pvc, build the return plumbing out of 1" pvc and everything will go swimmingly? I have to do some more looking into sump construction, but right now I don't understand how to set the waterlevel in the sump. I'm sure I'll be able to answer it with some searching around but I'm posting the majority of my questions first.

Do I HAVE to put baffles in the sump? Right now I just want to work on the flow between the overflow and the pump. I'm not planning on putting media or anything else in this yet, I haven't decided exactly how i want to go about that. I do know that I want to leave as much open water area as I can so that I can utilize the sump as a plant & fry growout if need be.


this part isn't as important:screwy:
Also, if anyone has read my other two recent threads here, I'm still thinking of doing the vacuum idea attached to the overflow. I think if I just put a T connector at the top of the U over the tank and put a ball valve on each side I'll be able to do this idea easily. It would just be a matter of leaving the hose off during normal operation, when I want to use it, open its valve, let water start flowing through it and then close the other ball valve to keep the flow rate equalized.


also, before anyone mentions using a larger sump tank since its going a 90 gal...the sump is in addition to two rena xp3's which are already filtering the tank just fine. I'm not worried about having 1/3 the volume of the tank in the sump, and 20h is about as big as I can comfortably fit in my stand.



Thanks in advance for any input :)
 
You do not need baffles in the sump to test your pump/overflow.... But I would suggest putting baffles in later and NOT LEAVING THE PUMP running without them unless you are there... Say your sump is half full and your pvc overflow stops working. Then your pump will push all the water out of the sump into the tank and possibly overflowing the tank. With a Baffle you can have the pump on one end of the sump and it will only pump out that part of the chamber it is in and not all of the sump water......

Make sure you put pvc ball valves on the Overflow to the sump and the pump to the tank then you can fine tune the flow of water so they flow equal....The level of the sump can be as high as you want it butttt... Make sure if the electricity goes out there is enough room for the pvc overflow water to fill the sump without overflowing it....It will drain for a little bit untill it reaches your T that you set your heidth/level...I already saw the pic you made and the style overflow you have the T for your Water level heidth....
 
Good points. I drew up a to-scale sketch of the sump with baffles earlier and left 2 inches at the top of the tank and only 6 inches of water on the pump side. If that's not enough Itll be easy to drop the water level. I drew it up so that I basically have a 'useable' 5 gallon tank above the filter media...I'll post it later.
 
So the overflow sets the hight in the tank, any water added splis down into the sump until the level of the over flow is reached again.

In the sump you put however much water in there you want, pump turns on and pumps to the tank, water level will drop a little from the exta water in the tank but only a little. This is the running hieght in the the tank. Shut off the pump and let the extra water flow to the sump. you can fill the sump up to a safe level and that is your max hieght, turn the sump back on and mark you water line, max running water line, any higher and the sump will over flow when the pumps turns off/ power outage.
 
I am running a 220 Gallon Aquarium with two canister filters Fluval FX5 and 305. My sump is only 20 gallons so I made a raised sump Wet/Dry Trickle for it so I had room for water when electricity shuts off... Wew it's close about 1 1/2" from the top when the overflow stops. I have a 55G extra tanks so I'm gonna upgrade my sump. But other projects have me right now... :)

Sump 5.JPG
 
Stealing this from calpoly...just saw his build thread. I think the sump he's got drawn up might be more what I'm looking for. I think it'll do less as far as bio filtering, but more as far as growing plants & breeding food.

attachment.php
 
Just an FYI but that is a saltwater sump, you didn't mention which you were doing but thought i would through that out there.
 
I realize its a saltwater sump, but there's no reason it won't 'work' for a FW tank. It might (certainly) offer less biological filtration, but thats not my overall goal with this sump, so no big deal.

I haven't settled yet on exactly what direction I'm taking this, but I really like the idea of having a space to breed food (be it live bearers or shrimp or both) without having an extra tank to maintain. I have a few other things/projects to take care of before I get going putting this together so I have time to think it out & decide the best plan of action. So far I've done a bit of cursory research on sumps, but I still haven't completely wrapped my head around them. Once I do that I'll be able to make a better decision about it and decide what I'm going to do.

Thanks for the input though!
 
Ok so after reading a little bit more....what I'm ACTUALLY thinking about is a refugium (if I build it so that I can grow plants/breed food). I'm not too certain that a 20h is going to allow enough space/volume to do this effectively, but its definitely something I'm keeping in mind.

Some quick googling of FW refugiums turned up some people building them to try and use plants as an effective method of filtration. I'm not sure if thats something I want to attempt with this tank or not, so I'm still at the drawing board...
 
If you never built a sump then why don't you just use the 20 high as an experiment... Make a sump/baffles add some media and experiment on how they work with the overflow... Then worry later on a different sump that is longer for plants....Then after this one is built you should know what you want to do for size of sump later on down the road.......That is what I did....And now I know I want a bigger/longer one.....But this one works fine for now until I make the new one...
 
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