Adding a sump to my 85 l

hello

So I thought I'd share this with you guys as it is my first sump and I am afraid I might be making lots of mistakes

So after my incident with my maine nano during my holidays I decided to start from scratch again. I ordered a new custom sump from seahorse (46x35x32 cm), the baffles (4 actually).

On the first baffle (this one is split in 2) I will have the intake from the tank and on the other half the skimmer. The middle baffle will have a refugium with some live sand and a little bit of live rock as well as some macro algae, preferably cheatomorpha. The third baffle will be for the return pump.



The sump will go here



So next thing is to add the overflow box (blau 1500 lph) to my aquarium. To do so I need to remove my tank from the cabinet (the tank on the top is the quarantine tank were I put everything that survived the holocaust)



So I removed the water from the aquarium, put it in buckets and removed the aquarium.

Then I started my modifications to the overflow box. The main problem I had is that the overflow box would make my water level too low. So I decided to modified the overflow box inner box and increase the height.



If I am not happy with the water level I made another one that gives me an extra 2 cm of water level.

I had to protect the top of the inner box to prevent fish from jumping in (specially jawfish) so I cut a piece of acrylic and glued it with some silicone (i know it doesnt look good but as long as it works I am happy)



I noticed that the rear top of the overflow box is exposed, to prevent any dust and fur (my cats are fur machines) from entering the water line I decided to make a small cover.



And that's about it with the overflow box. I placed it in the aquarium and secured it to the back of it with a carbon box.

As the aquarium was already out I decided to make some modifications to the layout as well as adding some PVC rings to the sandbed.

I need DSP because I am planning on adding a jawfish. In theory they require at least 4 inches of sand bed. My sand bed is somewhere between 2.5 and 3 inches at the moment. Adding PVC rings and tubes will increase the aeration and prevent the live rock from sinking.

From what I can see there is a bit of a debate regarding whether or not DSB are beneficial to the aquarium or not. This aquarium will change in the upcoming months so I am not too worried about it.



Its important I place the PVC correctly to prevent rocks from sliding or falling on the jawfish.

So after I made the necessary wholes to the back of the bookshelf I placed the aquarium back into the shelve and filled it up with water. I connected the external filter to the front of the aquarium as I am still waiting for my return pump to arrive.



The overflow box fits nicely on the back (or at least I think it does!)



So next thing was to move the overflow inside the bottom drawer so more pics to follow

I know it isnt very interesting but remember I am a noobie!

looks good nice modification. personally i try to avoid the overflow boxes - guess i don't trust them fully - if enough air gets in there the tank will over flow onto the flow.

nice little setup you have there

keep us posted

Thanks!

I know what you mean, I am not a fan either but space is an issue for me, I probably should have built an overflow box into the tank when I had it made.

I have calculated the amount of water in the return pump to be anywhere 6.8 liters to a max of 11 l (that is just what the baffler can hold, if needed the remaining volume inside the sump is close to 25 liters).

The volume between the water level to the top of the aquarium is 11 cm (approx 17 liters). The water level increases 5-6 cm when the water starts flowing, thats around 10 liters left before reaching the top of the aquarium. So as long as I never exceed this volume I should be ok, shouldn't I?

I am hoping that to prevent the tank from overflowing I will need to make sure I never fill the return baffler inside sump higher than to a certain level (which I will determine as soon as I get my return pump).

I got a eheim compact 2000 which has a variable rate of 1000 to 2000 lph. My blue overflow box has a rate of 1500 lph so I hope it can handle the eheim (i will set it to 1000)

I think the return pump compartment will give me enough volume to run the pump for a maximum of 50 seconds before running out of water (not sure what will happen to the pump if it has to run dry!)

So in paper, to me, it looks ok. But I have the feeling that it is not going to be so "easy" once I get things going.

I have the feeling I have done something wrong... I just dont know what!

Will my return pump be too strong for my overflow, will the flow inside the sunmp be too high? Will the return baffler be big enough? etc etc...

very interested as also have a small marine with no sump. would love to know the financeson same even if by pm
Can I also ask what is on the LHS of the sump. looks like sponges/skimmer ?

Hey sincgar

That thing is the skimmer, is a Deltec MC500. It fits perfectly (I when I say perfectly I mean like a glove) inside the drawers cabinet. It is so tight that to remove the skimmer cup I have to open the top drawer to allow for those extra 4 cm I need! I will upload a picture later.

The skimmer is a lot nosier than I expected so I dont discard replacing it for a smaller one (I dont really need a big skimmer as I only have a total volume of around 110-120 l.

Reasons why I decided to go for a sump is mostly space. My nano is "built" into the bookshelf, this means that I have no space on the back for anything (skimmer, etc). The space inside the aquarium is also very limited, as well as the access. Building a sump will allow me to move "stuff" inside the aquarium to the sump (heater, live rock) as well as to add a skimmer to the sump and also a cooling system (just a fan) as it gets quite hot sometimes.

Price, well is not too expensive, the custom made sump cost me around 100 euro. The skimmer was another 100 (second hand), the return pump free (eheim sent it to me as goodwill gesture because of the catastrophe caused by their automated feeder), then the filter sock was like 10 euro.

The overflow box was 65 euro, the piece of acrylic 10, the silicon 8, I also had to buy 16/22 tubing (5 meters) I think that was 5 per meter, shut off valves and that's about it.

So a total of 320 euro, 400 with the return pump.

Wow... I have never calculated the price before... but I guess for a hopefully "fully" working sump 300 euro is not too bad?

But I guess it is worth it, maybe, I dont know I havent turned it on yet!!! the tank looks nicer now and much less overcrowded.

Ok so yesterday my new pump arrived



I placed the pump inside the compartment, space is tight there!



I will tidy up during the week. For the moment I just want to see the sump and return pump running.

So it run yesterday evening and last night. This afternoon I decided to turn on the skimmer as I am having issues with my pH and I think is to do with aeration, my plan was that by turning on the skimmer my pH will increase.

At 1 pm the pH was 7.78. As now, my pH is 8.17 so it seems to be working!

Tested the rest of the water, Ammonia 0.001, nitrite 0, nitrates 10 (before turining the skimmer on), Mg 1320 and Calcium 440, Salinity is 1.025 and the temperature 24 degrees (i will increase it to 25 probably but not just yet).

The MC500 is a bit noisy, but I think I can live with it, I will need to get a new pump to fix the noise problem so maybe next month.

This is how tight the skimmer fits, specially the collection cup! Its going to be a pain to remove the whole skimmer for maintenance though.



the water is crystal clear at the moment.. can't wait to put something in!

This is a small video showing both the tank and the aquarium. Its not yet finished though, I need to secure the overflow hose to the sump (its kind of secured) as well as the return pump hose to the tank. the media you see in the video is from my old external filter, I thought I'd put it in there in case I need to revert back, not really necessary though. I havent adjusted the skimmer yet so i dont know if its skimming anything.

video is private

ooppsss

Fixed

Good homework. I'm debating weather to get an overflow box or not. I'm not sure if i should trust them or not

well, I am not 100% happy myself as every 3-4 days I need to purge mine, however, it could be because it is not perfectly leveled (i will fix it this weekend and see). Even then although it has never failed me I can't say I feel confident it will never do... When I get my new bigger aquarium I will install a proper overflow box and drill the nano tank and get rid off this one... But now I have no choice I am afraid.

Blau sells a nice overflow "box" that goes on the back of the aquarium which looks perfect, I think its called blau internal overflow... not sure if you can trust it either but it looks good and small

Very interesting and detailed thread, well done. Just remember you need to turn over the water in your tank atleast 4 times an hour, so lets say you have 300l tank by 4 thats 1200l per hour the flow rate has to be going through your sump. You can adjust your flow box and return pump to match that.

Hi Paul

Yes, I read about that. My display tank is around 85 l in volumen, I initially had a Eheim compact pro 2000 running at the minimum flow (1000 lph). My overflow box has a max flow of 1500 lph. It was a bit too much current for the tank so I bought a Eheim compact 1000 and set the flow at around 750 lph (more or less).

Also, my sump can't really handle 1000 lph, most of the water ends up pouring out of the filter sock, 750 lph does the job!

I also have two hydor 1600 in the tank and a wave controller. I normally run only one of them at 5 minutes intervals.

The sump is pretty tight at the moment. I have the refugium, the nano skimmer, the heater, the UV sterilizer etc. It has come very handy, I will add a automatic water top up system that I bought of fish-street as well as a cooler (either fans or a chiller).

Great idea the sump if you dont have much space. Funny thing is that I will be upgrading tanks in a couple of months or so!

Your some man to squeeze in a ton of gear into a small sump. You got it sorted, looks great on that old antiquey cabinet

My only thoughts are maybe your passing water through the sump so fast that the biological filtering wont have time to do thier converting. Maybe some other keepers here can add a comment on the best flow rate through a sump. 4 times tank volumn is the minimum, whats the optimum.

Thanks!

That cabinet is now falling apart, so many wholes on the back... the missus doesnt really know how bad is it... she rather look away.


Indeed, I would appreciate some inputs regarding water flow.

This sump is not really meant for filtration but I am concerned about the skimmer not skimming enough water volume.

So at the moment I have the sump return pump running at 700 lph, that's around 8 times my display's tank total volume. Maybe I should try lowering it a bit.

The other pump is pumping water to the UV sterilizer at around 300 lph. The sterilizer is ratesd to 380 lph. The return is going to the return section of the sump.

Ive never had a marine tank so im mostly guessing here. A skimmer needs a slow flow to effectively remove protein and I think your 8x rate maybe little too fast. Im not sure what you mean by the sump is not for filtering, to me its your main filter. The UV will work fine at full rate.correct me if im wrong but a refugium is a live filter in the sump and needs time to work its magic. Hopefully another more experienced marine keeper will reply. If you do slow down your return pump you will have to suitably adjust the in flow so as not to over flow the sump. That your wife will notice (

In a saltwater aquarium the filtration works differently than with a freshwater aquarium. The live rock and the live sand inside the aquarium is what acts as a natural filter. In theory, in a marine tank there is no need for a an external filter nor a sump, a skimmer and some sort of internal flow such as a powerhead will suffice.

I want my refugium mainly to grow macro algae, macro algae removes phospates and nitrates from the water, it is also a good place to create a deepsandbed. Deep sand beds do help with the filtration (some people might disagree but the best place to have a DSB is in a refugium). In my case, I'd need to increase the depth if I want to use it as a DSB.

I still think I am going to lower the rate a bit, probably to around 450 lph and see how it goes. It wont affect the tank but it might improve my algae growth, refugiums need very little flow too.

Ive never got into how a marine tank works thanks for my first lesson , now im thinking id like a marine set up.

Nice. I'd love to master setting up a sump. What sort of light are you using in the sump? Is it for the algae and how long must it stay on? Timer etc?

Hey

Lighting is my main problem at the moment.

Macroalgaewise I have:

- Caulerpa Racemosa var Peltata
- Caulerpa microphysa

These 2 are doing fine in my tank, however I also had

- Chaetomorpha
- Feather Caulerpa

These two were not doing well and I had to move them to my hospital tank before they would die. They are both doing great, looking very green too. I am not sure what was causing the macroalgae to die, it could be related to a small algae outbreak that I have in my tank I must investigate further..

As lights go I am using beamswork 3W Evo LED (6 LEDs, 4 10 k 2 actinics).



The lights are great but there are two things I dont like about it:

One is that I can only place the light in the front of the tank, because the light is wide it illuminates the whole sump instead of just the refugium, and second the light K temperature is not ideal for macro algae growth (it has 4 10k and 2 actinics). There is a freshwater version, if I could get the same LEDs with a different mount It would be great but I havent found one yet.

I have also tried other LEDs such as this one



but again the temperature is not ideal as this lights are meant for marine tanks.

If I can't find any LEDs next month I will buy a 35 cm long T5 mount with 2 8 W 6500k. That will definetively do the trick. The only problem is the heat and power consumption.

I have recently started to run the lights at night and switching them off during the day, so on from 5 pm until 8 am and off the rest of the time. I wanted to try to estabalize my pH, it seems to be working well as my pH barely fluctuates now.

My tank is still a work in progress. I will probably start moving some of my corals to my hospital so I can rearrange the tank and do some cleaning. I havent been able to do much in the tank since I put my bluespotted jawfish, he was having issues at first and I had to try to make him feel safe and create as less stress as possible in the tank.

Thanks Bohrio,

I'm fascinated with these sumps I keep hearing about but they're still a bit of a jump for me yet. Appreciate the info.

No problem. There is really no big mystery tbh. They are not necessary but they can come handy and if you have the space, great!

The only thing I am no 100% happy with is the overflow box. Once I get my new tank I am going to drill the tank and remove that overflow box, the rest works just perfect.