Sump plan, any good?

[Gill Blue]

Tank dimensions are 48x24x12 or 60G. This is for a 240G, not that it will have 240G of water. I like my deco too much to run a naked tank.
This will not be high turnover. between 2x-4x I'm thinking. There will be about 4 gallons of matrix in that section. If I have the cash or don't think it's enough, I'll add some more. but seachem says "Use 1–2 Liters of Pond Matrix™ for each 100 US gallons". that means 4 litres for 200G, and I'll have 8.
The section of eggcrate is to hold back the matrix. I expect it to be an 1" opening with 5" of baffle above.
The last baffle will be whatever height the biomatrix fills up to. maybe a bit higher to have room for more biomedia.

I'm thinking of leaving a 1" gap at the top of the first baffle as an overflow but I doubt I'd let the filters get that bad...
of course what's a 1"gap compared to a burnt out pump? so possibly.




This is my first try at filter design, so let me have it. what's wrong with it?

 

[Oughtsix]

Looks like a very functional sump to me! I have not used poret before, is it mostly for mechanical filtration or is it also for bio filtration? If it sustains a substantial bacteria colony how much effect will cleaning it be on your bio filtration? Is poret easy to maintain?

Where are you going to put the heater(s)?

Is there any chance you might want to use the sump as a refugium at some point in time?

Looks good!

 

[Gill Blue]

I haven't used poret before either, but my intention is for it to serve as both filter and biomedia. here is a pdf that discusses PPI and micron sizing filtration rates. it's for ceramic foam, but it should be close enough despite the material difference.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...LasoQV&usg=AFQjCNHW7UEBRUMbU3RbMgBJsvFVZiXrLQ
according to that, the filtration of 50PPI is excellent, 45 should be fine enough for my purpose.
If not I'll have 2 other filtration systems running that I can use to get the really small stuff.
from what I've read, it's reasonably low maintenance. maybe once a year without crazy stocking. and if you don't squeeze it, it should last for years. you pull it out, wack it a few times and rinse.

I won't use it for a refugium, I'm going to have 2 of them in old HOB filters running off the extra light from the floods I'm using to light the tank.

no heater, these are north american fish, they can take the chill.

unfortunately, I've been thinking about it and have come up with another idea and I can't decide which one I want to do...


here's the original pretty much finished.

here's the new one. seems like it may be a bit better because there's a lot more 10 PPI foam, and I think an easier flow.

they say that most of the bio-filtration takes place in the first 1" of surface so I may put bubble wands in between the sheets. or in the open area under the foam for the first design.


I'm still reading.

 

[Oughtsix]

I like your second design for its apparent poret surface area and its ease of getting to the poret. I see you have the poret drawn to extend all the way up to the top of the sump but I assume you will be keeping it an inch or so below the rim so you will not have a flood if the poret gets blocked?

There seems to be a whole lot of empty space???

 

[Gill Blue]

no Oughtsix, I was planning on the foam reaching the top. my reasoning is that the top 2-3 inches would always be clear since the water level would never reach that high. so if it did, it would still be flowable.

your comment about the ease of getting to the poret is well taken, and not something I had considered. although the conclusion is opposite yours, I'm glad you pointed it out. I only have about 12" of head room over the sump and it's 24" wide so pulling out a 12"x13" piece of standing foam seems like it would be more difficult than taking out a piece of foam that's 2-4 inches tall though wider.
add to that the fact that the first one will be easier to build, has more aerating level drops, and that I've found a video of someone else's similar design that shows the uprising water will work...
[YT]Yh_Yu5Wler4[/YT]
I was worried that the water level in the 6" first area wouldn't provide enough flow through the 13" foam area. but RRasco's running a pretty powerful pump and the design keeps up.

I think you see where I'm going with this
thanks for the help.

 

[wow_it_esploded]

I would personally just use a filter sock or two instead of the initial poret, just because they are pretty easy to pull and clean. Otherwise, it looks fine!

 

[Gill Blue]

thanks for taking a look, wow.
I don't think filter socks is a good idea. I'll have many smaller fish, shrimp, and crays that I want to be able to fish out of the sump alive when they get sucked through the overflow. I've got back problems so they may need to hang out there for extended periods of time before I can get to them. ease of removal is why I have that initial square of foam (which I changed to 20 PPI from the 10) as a prefilter. based on what I've read, even without a pre-filter I won't need to clean the foam more than once a year.
there will also be a emperor 400 with a floss of some sort to keep down the finer particulates, if that's even needed. most of the poret posts I've read here and elsewhere state that their 30PPI poret filtered tanks have the clearest water and I'll be running a final 45PPI pad.