Sump setup help needed.

[Peter McFarlane]

I recently bought a 2nd hand tank and it came with a sump setup. The person I bought it from was selling for a friend and had no idea how it all worked.

It basically looks like this:

I can work out how the water goes down into the sump, but struggling to work out how it returns back up to the tank. It came with a Fluval 203 cannister type filter and also a "Eheim" little box, guessing its just an air pump.

Also confused as to what media goes where, it came with a bag of bio balls, some sponges and also a bag of fossil looking rocks.

Also under the tank in the cabinet is a UV system.

The guy who had the tank before was running it as a marine setup, so not sure if I need the UV for freshwater?

I'm a bit of a noob, have setup up smaller tanks with regular internal filters but never dealt with any sump sort system or even an external filter. Would be very very grateful for any info/advice on what media goes where. And also regarding setting up the water return back into the tank.

Thanks.

 

[sin01bst]

i believe the ehiem "box" is actually the return pump. i would put it in the chamber all the way to the left in the tub. then all you would need would be some tubing and a u shaped tube that would spit the water out into your tank. kinda hard to explain. ill try to get some pics of what my setup looks like

 

[sin01bst]

this is an old return pump i had on a 75gallon tank. u can see the u shaped thing i was talking about

i dont think you would need the uv sterilizer unless you develop an algae problem.so how big is this tank? hope this helps.

 

[Peter McFarlane]

sin01bst thanks for the response. Ok cool eheim on the extreme left chamber, one pipe running to the top of the tank... will the eheim be submerged under water? or do i have it outside of sump with 2 tubes attached (intake/outake)? or inside sump with just one tube going as (return) ?

Will leave the UV for now if its not vital, as this lot is using so many sockets already!! The tank is 6ft... So on your setup you had an air pump running in the sump... Did you have any other filters running? External cannister etc? Will that (fluval)be running completely seperatley to my sump? I figured it would have to be involved in that someway?

 

[WeeNe858]

the "box" is an eheim return pump (http://www.eheim.com/universal.htm) . it give you the option of fully submersing the pump in water or exterior hook up.


some of the pros and cons:
Inside the tank- pros. out of the way, cant leak, more quiet performance
cons. produces heat thats transfered into the water

Outside the tank- pros. easy access, no heat transfer
cons. "intricate" connection, requires a hole in the sump, possible leakage on to the floor


rinse the bio balls and the foam and it can be reused. the fossil looking rocks are either live rock or coral skeletons. this was used to maintain a high ph for saltwater with the calcium. you can use small amounts for a cichlid tank

Uv is used to kill anything single cell, good or bad, fresh or salt. its a personal option to run it.

 

[Peter McFarlane]

Ah WeeNe, you are a hero. Very useful info, I understand where I'm at now. Think i'll definetly be having it inside the tank, no leaks and added heat coming into the tank sounds good to me!

Uv killing anything single cell, what does that mean in noob terms? I mean will it kill my vital bacteria?

 

[muckieman]

no it kills bateria algea and i think ich and so on.

 

[WeeNe858]

yeah. it will kill anything that is single celled and in the water column when it hits the uv light. that includes the bacterias that help the nitrogen cycle. but most of the bacteria that you need to stabilize the tank should be anchored down my the time your tank is set up..

i recommend NOT running the uv until you begin to stock the tank

 

[Peter McFarlane]

Ok lads, sorry for the delay in updating this thread... but recently started new job so have had little time to get things going. As most of you know, I've had a lot of issues getting this tank running, firstly needed new electrical work done in the house to rig this up, then had lots of sump issues, leaks and what not, but finally I've started cycling.

Hard to see theres actually water in it, but there is I assure you! In the end got the sump arranged as advised by a few of you guys. Water goes first onto the bio balls, then into second section where theres loads of scrubbies, then into the alpha grog, then through some more scrubbies and finally back into the tank.

Managed to get a deal on a bundle of scrubbies from the local pound store, so probably got more then I need, but they were going cheap so why not. Had to get a roll of plastic piping to go from the return pump back to the tank, cos the return pump is eheim, i found out that it wasn't standard tube fitments/size, so had to get official eheim tubing (11 quid!!!) was not impressed, but small price for the end result..

The overflow tube is finally doing what its meant to, had issues with that before also, but sorted now and doing as it should..

Ignore the sticky tape on the side and the mess around the tank, still very much work in progress so room is half bedroom, half work site...

Going to build the lid/hood today, gonna make a run to the timber yard and pick up some marine ply, not going to go mad, just a standard lid, one piece of wood cut in two, hinged in the middle etc.

Also going to try and arrange some sort of background, even a makeshift one for now so you cant see the wall behind it...

Wanted sand on the bottom of this one, but as I've already got a bucket of gravel in the garage, thinking I'll be using that...

Will keep you posted on progress and hopefully post more later today/tonight.

Cheers,

Pete

PS. The bottom of the stand, does have doors.... Just keeping them off so I can get to things easy instead of opening closing etc..

 

[fishdance]

Next time (and to those reading) you can use any silicon tube of slightly smaller diameter and heat it up with some boiling water which will allow you to stretch it over the fitting tightly. The Eheim tubing is excellent though and will last many many years.