Help with my sump design plz!

Yea that would def be a concern for me. The width and height would be fine, but 10 inches of length is almost half of my 15g tank. That would leave around 6 inches each for my pump/refugium hmm.

Thanks for the input, its much appreciated!

 

yea, thats not much room.. Maybe look into a 20l unless you are dead set on the 15g... Or a HOB skimmer..

 

That is why I recommended the Coralife. It is not the best skimmer but for the price and the footprint it is good for your application and space needs.

 

Well the only reason I'm set on the 15G (and the reason I'm doing a sump) is because the 15G is free (and I love free lol).

The Coralife needs about 8"x8" which inst too bad. Ill probably need 6" for a pump (I'm guessing) which will leave 10" for the Refugium.

You guys think that's enough space for everything?

 

I would agree that bigger is better even though free is awful nice. I would just hate to waste the time and effort just to realize that you could of fit a much larger sump for not that much more money. 90 gallons is a pretty large tank and if you really want to max the benefits of the refuge I would recommend a 30 gallon min (just my opinion). I do understand the benefits of free .

Good luck man!

 

i had a size issue under my stand (as of right now in process of building my sump) you might want to just go with a extra tank refugium (glass or tupperware) that is on a stand of 2x4s that gravity drains into the sump and make more room in the 15gal for equipment.

 

I thought about it this for a while and it makes pretty good sense. I really don't want to buy another tank, so maybe getting a small/medium size Rubbermaid container would work out. Those containers aren't too expensive.

The next question would be if I did that and with the rubbermaid container and my set up looked like this:


I would have anywhere between 5-7 inches of extra space (indicated by green ?'s) after giving my filter/return pump enough space.

Should I just split that space up and give my return pump/filter extra space, or should I try to do something with that extra space (like put bioballs or similar things there like so:

 

your paint skills impress me. thats what im doing, im just using a 10g and not putting a skimmer in it as of yet I have a nice HOB that is staying put for now. As for media and bioballs, Im installing a BRS media reactor so I have no need for additional filtration and bioballs are a hotly discussed topic. I've heard they are nitrate factories but have read with maintenance they are beneficial. I'm a lazy reefer so I'm going without. I always have low bioloads so extra filtraion is not needed. Are you planing on a filter sock? THAT i am planning on to take out particulates!!

 

You could always just put LR in that space. You can never have enough of that

 

for a 90g tank I would really look into getting a bigger sized sump. I'm using a 15g sump for my 55g and its got a small fuge in it too as well as a reef octopus vortex skimmer and even that is a teeny bit tight.
As for your second design with the ruibbermaid, that could work. Maybe with the vacant space in the actual sump you could move the skimmer into there and put some sort of prefilter before it?

Edit: Also with bioballs, everything I have read and all the DVD's I have watched have indicated that a lot of times they cause more problems with Nitrates than they solve. Another option would be to chuck a few air stones in that space for some extra oxygen in the water