Please rate my sump...

[Ian21777]

One minute im happy with it. The next im not. Any thoughts on it?






Starting in the first pic, from the right...

1st compartment-2drains going into 100 micron sock. Then through big foam blocks.

2nd compartment- various grades of foam, japmat and floss/wadding sheet.

3rd compartment- bunch of K1 (originally wanted to do moving bed filter but couldnt get it working!) Almost full bag of alfa-grog, litre of seachem matrix and various ceramic media. Bunch of bio balls. Power head to circulate around the media and 700 watts of heating.

Bubble trap.

4th compartment- laguna maxflow 9000 litre/hour pump.

Box on top of sump- 2 and a bit gallon container with 30 pot scrubbies fed from pump in 3rd compartment.


Tank is a 180 6x2x2. Stock: 7inch IT. 4inch Oscar. 5inch Severum. 13inch Ornate Bichir. 10inch Delhezi. 4/5 inch Flagtail. 13inch Gar.

Future stock in grow-out: 2 spangled perch. Pink tail chalceus. Dwarf giraffe catfish.

Thanks for the input...

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[Pazzoman]

What size is the sump?

Hope someone chimes in as I will be having a 180 soon and trying to look into how to create the best sump for it

 

[Ian21777]

Sump is 50x18x17. I have it filled to around 12 inch. Not sure on gallonage. The remaining space is enough to accommodate the syphon in case of power outage.

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[Pazzoman]

IMO sumps looks good, however its coming from a guy who's sump for a 72 gallon is a 33 gallon sump with a filter sock and tons of pond matrix lol.

I just reread your post, the laguna pump, did you take it out of the "cage"? Im interested in getting the laguna because of its wattage benefits. Im just trying to figure out how big the return area has to be...thanks

 

[Ian21777]

Yeah took the cage off. Theres no stand though so I had to wedge it in place with foam/sponge. That and the return line stops it moving/ vibrating. My return chamber is 5inch, theres room to spare which is where I have the folded up foam.

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[Gill Blue]

it sounds ok, but a drawing would work better. depending on how you're using it you may not want the floss in with the matting, and with a good design you shouldn't need a powerhead to flow the water around the media. if you've already got good flow the powerhead will reduce the biological effectiveness.
no need for bubble traps in fresh water, good if you were planning on switching to salt one day though.

 

[Ian21777]

Ok cool. Ill try and get a drawing on here later. Whats the deal with the floss and the matting? how would more flow reduce the effectiveness? Im not disputing what you say, rather asking for clarification. thankyou

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[David R]

If your water is clean and clear you should be happy with it I guess. It looks a bit over-complicated to me, I'm not sure what you're hoping to achieve by using every possible type of biological media known to man but whatever works for you. I wouldn't be surprised if you could take some of it out and not notice the difference, the container on top seems unnecessary to me.

 

[Ian21777]

Sorry david. I dont know how I missed your post... it does seem like a lot of different media. It just turned out that way. My old tank had 3 cannisters which is where the matrix bio balls ceramics etc. came from when i upgraded. I was advised on here to use the foam and the japmat in the 2nd chamber. The third chamber was gonna be moving bed with k1 but when that didnt work I filled with alfa-grog instead and I figured just as well leave the k1 in. As for the box on top with the scrubbies? Well scrubbies are cheap and you can never have too much bio, right?

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[David R]

and you can never have too much bio, right?

Yep, certainly better to have too much rather than not enough. If your water is good then it's doing it's job. Is the trickle container running it's own pump? The reason I suggested trialling the sump without it was to save you a few KWH by not having to run the secondary pump.