Retrofit Sump

[Giant Val]

Hi,
I have a 360 gal tank that was set up about two years ago as a heavily planted community tank with approx 250 fairly small (tetras, rainbowfish, corydoras, ricefish, ottos etc) fish. I foolishly put in 16 x silver dollars and they have basically destroyed the plants and eaten the shrimp. I am wanting to move towards having several larger fish in the tank (not aggressive, just larger such as filament barbs, geophagous, angels, chocolate cichlid, etc). Current filtration is 1 x Fluval FX6 and 1 x Fluval 406 canister filters, and water is cirulated by twin Maxspect Gyre 250s.

I'm thinking to add a sump for the planned extra bioload. Four 1" holes are drilled in one end for the filter inlets and outlets through bulkheads. I have never had a sump before. I don't have a weir. Do I need a weir, or can a sump simply be plumbed through the bulkheads (I'd remove the smaller canister filter). Tank is a feature in middle of house so I need plumbing to be fairly quiet.

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[eddiegunks]

I am new to sumps. I have built 3 and am working on the 4th.

Once i got a reef ready tank i will never go back. I have successfully drilled 6 tanks. Here is a picture of one of my 40 gallon. I have a rack of four of them plumbed into a sump. The other ones have Loc-line on them but this one Does not have them.



I have the drains dropping right into the sump. I have the Jabeo pump. It all runs very quietly. I had to play around with adding a vent to some of the drains so it wouldn't gulp. You also have to play with the angle of your intake drain to get the level in the tank that you want.

All that being said using a weir would be the way that I did it next time. Or buy reef ready tanks.

I have a 150 gallon reef ready that I built the plumbing for. I should've made the drains adjustable so I can control which one went to full siphon. It took me a little playing around but I was able to get these drains to run quiet with a ball valve on the drain line.

What I learned was if you can get one of your drains to be pulling a full siphon this will make it run extremely quiet. And then you can adjust the other one so it doesn't make much noise and can be controlled with a ball valve. The key to the noise that I get is the distance the waterfalls from the Wier to the drain pipe. That's where I have a little noise. It is not bad and the way that I fixed it was I do not allow it to run it full siphon. The way that I did it was to play around with the size of the vent hole in the drain pipe.

Again, my error was building my drains not adjustable. And what happens as a result is if it pulls a full siphon the water falling the longer distance makes noise. If my drain was a bit taller it would be perfect. (I was too lazy to redo it). So i added a vent, and a ball valve and got it near perfect.

Look at the herbie system and the bean animal system. They will give you some ideas.

Keep us posted.

 

[Jhay3513]

eddiegunks X2 on reef ready. I have used a PVC overflow before and other DIY methods of getting water to the sump. I bought a used 75 on Craigslist for $140 and had to clean it out. I put 2 weeks of work into that aquarium and cracked it trying to drill it for an over flow. I caught a deal on a RR 75 gallon and will never look back. Having the holes drilled in the bottom allows for me to put the tank against the wall plus it minimizes bends in the outflow going into the sump. My outflow goes almost straight down into the 40 gallon sump i built. I also have a Jebao pump.

 

[Jhay3513]

Hi,
I have a 360 gal tank that was set up about two years ago as a heavily planted community tank with approx 250 fairly small (tetras, rainbowfish, corydoras, ricefish, ottos etc) fish. I foolishly put in 16 x silver dollars and they have basically destroyed the plants and eaten the shrimp. I am wanting to move towards having several larger fish in the tank (not aggressive, just larger such as filament barbs, geophagous, angels, chocolate cichlid, etc). Current filtration is 1 x Fluval FX6 and 1 x Fluval 406 canister filters, and water is cirulated by twin Maxspect Gyre 250s.

I'm thinking to add a sump for the planned extra bioload. Four 1" holes are drilled in one end for the filter inlets and outlets through bulkheads. I have never had a sump before. I don't have a weir. Do I need a weir, or can a sump simply be plumbed through the bulkheads (I'd remove the smaller canister filter). Tank is a feature in middle of house so I need plumbing to be fairly quiet.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Since you're starting from scratch I would research the bean animal overflow method. It's pretty much what Eddie was explaining but now you can really go in depth to get a better understanding

 

[Giant Val]

Thanks Eddie and Jeff, that's very enlightening. I'm glad I asked on this forum before I went ahead and made my solution. The Bean Animal design makes sense. I think I'll go with something along those lines.

 

[Jhay3513]

Thanks Eddie and Jeff, that's very enlightening. I'm glad I asked on this forum before I went ahead and made my solution. The Bean Animal design makes sense. I think I'll go with something along those lines.

Make sure you post pics!!!!!!

 

[Giant Val]

OK will post pics when I get into it. Thanks for the advice.