Hello 3reef

Hi all my name is Adam im from Smithville mo. Im very new to the sport, and only have a freshwater tank at the moment. I was originally inspired by the red eared slider my girlfriend brought home from a school project. DIY is my favorite pass time no matter what the subject. I started out making a above tank basking area for the turtle then moved to trying to make a canister filter...failed horribly and purchased a rena lol. Im moving back towards the idea now with more information and planning in mind. Im thinking PVC Overflow pipe to my wet/dry...Below is a rough paint of what im about to try out. Id love to here feedback and personal success/failures of your own, cuz thats the only way to learn.
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/5043/sump.png

 

welcome

 

Welcome.

Your sump would work, but you do have an awful lot of foam in there in my opinion.
Depending on what you plan to keep, you may want to rethink the bioballs.

A refugium is always good! No skimmer?

Edit:
On a second look... Even if you do decide to run bioballs, to remove the pads- you would have to remove the bioballs (so it seems, maybe you have something else planned). This could be a huge pain, and I would recommend not disturbing the bioballs too often.

Maybe have ALL of the foam after the drip tray, and from there the water can go into the bioballs.

Activated carbon gets exhausted pretty quickly. If thats at the bottom, you'll have to take everything out (including the bioballs) to replace to carbon.

A reactor or cannister filter hooked up to your sump would be perfect for running carbon.

 

Wow fast replys

i just popped over and read about the ply wood tank build this forum is pretty cool, im glad i finally found a active on with posts more current than 04.i have a rena xp1 that has about half the amount of foam im planning to use on this sump. in my 55g tank right now i have the red eared slider and a few goldies. Turtles are seriously messing also so i want to build a beast of a filter system, im really just looking to expand what rena made into a sump

Thanks daily- like i said a rough paint up of it, i didn't even think about disturbing the bioballs thats a great point. i thought it would be a good place to put them due to the wet/dry factor. ill have to do some redesigning real quick and see what i can come up with

 

ok so the revision has been made i decided to move all media to the baffles and fill the entire section previously used for media with bioballs. what do you think?
Rev.2

 

Seems perfect- except, bio-balls only work when they are exposed in the air and also in oxygen. Meaning, the balls need to be trickled on for them to be effective. I would glue acrylic half way up, removing half of the bioballs from the sump. Any bioballs 3" or so below the water surface are a waste.

Once you do that, you'll be PERFECT.

Also, research bioballs. They might not be the right media for your system.

 

the bioballs under water are incase of a power outage that would leave the ones out of water dry therefor killing any beneficial growth off of them.
From what ive read they are the best way of providing large amounts of surface area for growth i even found a Cheap retailer

 

Hello and welcome to 3reef

 

You have a point! I wasn't taking that into consideration.

Seems like you know what you're doing. Can't wait to see your progress.

 

Hi and welcome to 3 reef

Steve