Will this over the tank sump design work?

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Keister

Keister

Gambusia
MFK Member
Apr 26, 2012
807
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18
Hummelstown, Pennsylvania
I have been thinking about an over the tank sump for a while now and am curious if this design will work?

I want to take a plastic three drawer storage bin and drill holes in the three drawers so they drain into one another. Then ultimately drain into the top of the tank. I would drill 5x 1" holes in each drawer (one in each corner and one in the center) of the top two drawers and 3x 1.5" in the back of the bottom drawer to drain into the tank. I would use a mag 12 pump attached to the top of the bin to pump the water into the bin. In the top drawer I would have carbon then filter floss then a fine filter pad layered in order in the top drawer then in the bottom two drawers I would have shower luffas for bio. Does anyone have any critiques or better ideas for my design or do you think this will work? Also will the scrubbers be able to build up good bacteria being that they aren't submerged in water and water is basically only running over them? Thank you all in advance!


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I would not do it, those drawers don't really keep water all neat and where you want it. What are you planning on mounting said item to or what will be holding it up? are you just going to use the actual display tank sides as support?
 
I was planning on using two foot long tiles to support the shelf. The tiles would be sat across the the top of the tank. I was thinking there really wouldn't be a weight issue because the shelves wouldn't have any water actually sitting in them because it would instantly be draining. Basically the water would run right through the sump instead of on a normal sump where there would be a certain number of gallons retained in the sump


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It sounds like a functional idea. The whole thing about a DIY filter is making it work for you. Experimentation is required to figure out what works. Best advice is to try things cheap and see what works
 
Id recommend putting the drawer tower inside an additional rubbermaid container of some sort. As Kevin said the drawer towers do not contain the water very well, especially when ur spraying water in through the top at high speeds lol... the additional rubbermaid container will eliminate the need for heavy tiles on top of ur tank also and u can find one the size u need to span the gap of ur tank. Id also recommend drilling as many holes in the drawers themselves as u can, u dont want any water to fill up at all as this is more weight on ur tank. After drilling the holes, i lay down a layer of eggcrate to ensure the water can get out, very easy to flood a drawer if anything gets clogged. The soaked media will weigh more than u think also. Ill get u some pics of one of my overhead boxes. I just use mine to hold bioballs/photo plants now but ive ran overhead sumps for years and have used an erray of media. The drawer towers seem like a good deal but u want to keep the water contained as much as possible so for ex. 3-4 rubbermaids of the same size staked on one another with full lids may work better. Anyway, gimmie a sec ill get u some fresh pics.

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Arthur said:
It sounds like a functional idea. The whole thing about a DIY filter is making it work for you. Experimentation is required to figure out what works. Best advice is to try things cheap and see what works
Click to expand...

Absolutely! Go to diyfishkeepers site, and youtube if you haven't done so.
 
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Not the greatest pics or designs..but u get the idea...
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Hmmm Alrighty! Also what would this filter be comparable to all I have ever used are canisters so I'm not sure what this would be comparable to? Like would this be like an fx5 or 2x fx5s or what? I know gph of flow doesn't mean everything but I just want to be confident that that is going to make sure I never ever have ammonia issues when run with my 3 canisters. If it works really well I will probably add another one that is the exact same in design.


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