setting up my sump

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
I'm not with it today. I didn't even see the third chamber; I thought it was just the two. After looking at the first picture again, since the edge is parallel to the ground wire (green), I think my brain translated the edge as a shadow of the wire.

It all makes sense now. :ROFL:
 
use a fine tooth blade and go slow i think if you remove that area the water will over flow more evenly

or install a higher drip plate so the water can pass through all the bioballs
do it like this
bio balls on the bottom
eggcrate on top of that
put some blue filter pads on the eggcrate (to biuld it up her + more mechanical filtration
then your drip plate on top of the pads

you could probably remove those sponges all together if you did it that way
nd use that empty chamber to as a holding tank or you can throw some xtra media in the like carbon (if you use it)or put ur heater there
 
ozpkchris;2902321; said:
or justput a filter sock in that first chamber and have the input pass through that first
Click to expand...

:iagree:
I would put those elbows or elbow back on and construct a way to hold a filter sock. I know that your trying to get away from the splashing sound but that would be the best route IMO- wetdrys are a little on the loud side but that’s the price you pay for the most efficient filtration method..... Actually isn’t the water level in that chamber all the way to the top?
 
Yeah that wouldn't make any noise. But a sock would clog in a day with all the plant gunk this tank has. The course foam in that chamber is ideal for that.
 
How should I set up the prefilter in the overflow in a way that's effective and avoids clogging/dead spots?

I finally found some hose barbs that fit - brass 5/8", which is not ideal - so I hooked it up and did a test run. I don't have a street El or a 1 1/4" to 1" reducer for the standpipe so I just stuck a tall 1" pipe in there for now... sucking sounds can be dealt with temporarily.

But that didn't work very well at all. Even though the pump was only pushing water successfully through one side (the other had a kink) it still seemed to outpace the return, which would give me the bubbling and gurgling issue (I had some big bubbles exploding in the first chamber). Also, a bit of water found its way through the brass barb connection, which is odd since I clamped it pretty tight (and I know it's not 3/4" ID tubing because the 3/4" barbs on the T at the pump are too big). So I need to solve that problem too.

So I unplugged it then had the fun suction through the returns issue too (easy to solve, just yanked the ends off so they weren't underwater anymore). Lots of little things wrong here, definitely not a set it and forget it project.

Oh, and twenty minutes later I realized that my baby silver arowana Booger got sucked into the overflow. That can't have been fun for him. Not sure how that happened, as he's larger than the cutouts. Maybe he got squeezed over the top of them.


Anyway, since I'm a first timer, what should my next step be to even the flow? It's a MagDrive 12 pushing through two 1/2" PVC returns, and the drain is 1". I guess I assumed this would work OK since that's what it came with and had been set up before.

Would the UV sterilizer on one side and a CO2 reactor on the other be sufficient back pressure to slow the return flow, or should I get a ball valve(s)?

At least I have already learned where the max water level is.
 
Is this freshwater or saltwater?

For freshwater, the pump is somewhat oversized. For SW you can get away with a smaller pump too if you run powerheads in the tank. If you wanted to save some electricity, you could run a MD9 on the tank.

Either way, you need to look into getting another overflow on the system. The pump flows 1020 gph at a tank height of 5ft, but the one inch pipe only will flow 600 gph. Right now you are paying for twice as much electricity for what you are actually getting in flow.
 
It's FW but I bought it from someone who ran it as SW. Same piping though.

I don't really care what the electricity costs as long as it works right. But for as powerful as my brain is, I am a complete tard when it comes to the physics of water movement. I have no confidence that I could ever figure this out on my own. Which is kind of pathetic.
 
I'll help you out along the way. Does the pump have a ball valve on the output? I'm assuming it does for it to work right.
 
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