Submersed Media Sump

[shookONES]

I'm setting up my 120g and, instead of sticking with canisters I used last time, I drilled the tank and am doing the sump thing. The display tank is 120g and the sump is a 40b. The return pump will be a Mag18.

The whole idea for the submersed media sump came when I realized I couldn't deal with the loud splashing and slurping I've grown accustomed to associate with canister filters, so this idea was born. The things I need this sump to do are simple: handle a very heavily stocked DT, be whisper quiet, and eliminate any chance for micro bubbles making it through the return pump. Here's what I came up with. Things aren't to scale, but the idea is this.

blue is water flow, pink is a filter sock, tan is ceramic rings, green is sponge. I'm thinking I'll have 40-50lbs of ceramic rings in the setup.

Any thoughts or feedback? Any glaring design flaws?

 

[Spiritofthesoul]

You can skip the sponges since you already have a filter sock, It will impair water flow (not good). But it would contain Benificial bacteria too. But with your ammount of ceramic media, I think it would be enough

 

[pengu13]

i am no sump expert but i would say make it simpler , if you want to use sponges put them in the first chamber and leave a space for your heater. thats just my idea

 

[bOOsteN aUdI]

I agree, you may want to simplify your layout a bit. Why not make one chamber to hold all of your ceramic rings and possibly the last chamber becomes layered jap mat to decrease the amount of micro bubbles. You are also going to need a area for your heater. I actually just quickly illustrated my submerged media sump layout, I will post up the diagram after I finish tweeting my concept.

 

[Samcgtan]

I agree, you may want to simplify your layout a bit. Why not make one chamber to hold all of your ceramic rings and possibly the last chamber becomes layered jap mat to decrease the amount of micro bubbles. You are also going to need a area for your heater. I actually just quickly illustrated my submerged media sump layout, I will post up the diagram after I finish tweeting my concept.

Can you please elaborate how jap mat can reduce micro bubbles? Thanks.

 

[shookONES]

I've axed the idea of seperated chambers. It would be too complicated and time consuming to build. I'm going to have a single chamber for ceramic rings and a built in bubble trap and that's it. I'll sketch something up in a little bit.

 

[pengu13]

i have seen a lot more people doing submersed media sumps with no baffles just a media bag with all your ceramics in the middle with a pump on one side

 

[watercrawl]

My only comment would be that there is no trickle anywhere in that design to help with aeration of the water which is one of the big advantages of a wet/dry sump.

 

[shookONES]

i have seen a lot more people doing submersed media sumps with no baffles just a media bag with all your ceramics in the middle with a pump on one side

The more I think about it, the more I like this. I'm doing to have my drain into the sump curve upwards in a J fashion below the water line. I think this, but the vent tubes on my overflow, should alleviate microbubbles and noise. A Koralia is happening too!

My only comment would be that there is no trickle anywhere in that design to help with aeration of the water which is one of the big advantages of a wet/dry sump.

I'm running 35x tank volume of flow in the display tank. 1500GPH through the sump, and 2800GPH via Koralias. Aeration definetly won't be an issue.

 

[tothemaxx]

You have a pretty good concept there but make the first chamber a trickle system where a large sponge sits over a acrylic plate with holes drilled out. The water is prefiltered over the sponge and the water trickles over the bioballs/bio media. Second chamber is strickly for bio media like Bacteria House or Matrix. This is to prevent them from being clogged from all teh crap in the water. The third chamber is for return pump and heater. You don't want to make only one chamber system because those media will get clogged in no time from all the waste. Any other reason for braeking up different filter media sections is so that it is easy to maintain. If it becomes like one whole tower and you can see that the media is clogged its gonna be a nightmare to clean.