Need to build sump for 180. Let's see those sump designs

[nicobee18]

Here's my sump I designed and built for my 925lt Amazonian Cichlid tank build. The sump came with the tank, but I didn't like the baffle locations and chamber sizing's so I cut it all out and started fresh.

Water enters to the left at the top, tickles through some floss and Jap mat, runs left to right then down through more floss and jap mat. in the first chamber.
Then water goes up and over into 1 last layer of jap mat, 6lt of Biopure Ceramic balls and 12lt of Pond & Regular Matrix. 2x 250W Eheim Jager Heaters sit under this media with eggcrate spacing the media above the heaters. Water flows down through the ceramic media then heaters then into the next chamber, so its not heating the water then flowing over this ceramic media. (This is also part of the reason I want to be able to turn the pump up and flow more water through is so there's no "hotspots" created from the heaters, explained later on.) I live in Perth and my heaters really don't do a lot of work except for a few weeks in the middle of winter when it does get cold, so I'm not worried about overheating media in the sump having the heaters run non stop to try and keep the system to 25deg.
From there water goes up and over into K1 fluidized bed with 25lt of K1. Then lastly water flows up and through jap mat (to stop the k1 getting stuck / going through to the return chamber) and through more floss for water polishing. This baffle is also twice as thick as the others, so if I want to add some Carbon or Purigen it will go in there so the water is more likely to pass through it, rather than just sitting in the return chamber. Then into the return chamber.

I decided to go with all Ecotech equipment, which ill admit, is overkill (Vectra M2 Pump, 2x MP40QD and Battery Backup) but its my dream build so whatcha' gon' do?!.

The sump runs silent and flows really well. The system is restrained by the size of the overflow delivering water to the sump at the moment, so I'm going to make a few more changes including adding a Shadow overflow to get better flow into the sump and then I can turn the pump up. its only running at about 40% at the moment, id like to get it to around 60% to get good water turn over. Plus at the moment it only has 1 drain line to the sump, so id like to have some security built in and go to a bean animal style overflow (2 drain lines and 1 emergency). I haven't added any fish etc. yet to really test it but I did a lot of research and this designed combined all the best bits I found and wanted to try. Goodluck with your build!

View attachment 1489771

View attachment 1489772

Sorry should have mentioned the water volume of the sump (To the top of the baffles) is ~140lt - 4ft long sump. Cheers

 

[bknot1]

Here is my custom sump on my 500...

 

[Polypterus_36]

This is my 40b baffleless sump for my 180 bichir tank.

 

[celebrist]

This is my 40b baffleless sump for my 180 bichir tank.
View attachment 1489937View attachment 1489938

How do you keep the pothos roots out of your pump, mine took over whatever section I put them in

 

[Polypterus_36]

How do you keep the pothos roots out of your pump, mine took over whatever section I put them in

View attachment 1489939

View attachment 1489940

My pothos are young so they still have yet to take over the pump area, but their roots are getting there for sure. I'll probably just trim them when they get too long.

 

[714car11]

Sump for a 600 gallon

 

[DThompson]

Sump for a 600 gallon

Nice looking sump! Do you have some sort of pre-filter before the tank water goes into the moving bed filter? Also, how big is that tank (length and width)? I have a 90g sump with k1 and bio blocks but I feel like It's pretty crammed in there. You're looks a lot more spacious.

 

[ADawson23]

Finally finished all the wiring on the end of the sump.

 

[Backfromthedead]

Here's my 30g side sump for my new 135g build:


Very simple, just one chamber to hold the heaters and pump, extra media, and filter socks which will be installed once the tank is running full time. Though I threw an ac110 foam pad into the overflow box to sift out the sawdust, pvc shreds and such and may have inadvertently created the worlds best HOB filter...

 

[Backfromthedead]

This is my other running tank, 200g display with a 150g sump tank. Although to call it a sump by modern terms would be glorified, as it is just a tank with some holes drilled in the ends.


I did have some eggcrate dividers and more bio media stacked when it was heavily stocked, but for now it just holds socks and equipment, extra media, bogwood, and sponge filters. And if you look closely you can see a baby flowerhorn taking refuge here as he was being bullied in the DT above