Quick sump overview...your opinion needed

I am building a basic sump for a 215 gallon reef. Its modeled after one i made for my 90 but this one im trying to improve upon. My old sump i had to make a sponge wall to stop the microbubbles cause i thought the over under over would catch em all. Anyway heres a drawing of the new sump, its a 40 gallon with a over under over, on the last baffle about half way up there will be eggcrate with a 2-2.5" wide piece of sponge running the length of the sump to catch the bubble that get thru. I will have a bag of chemipure and or carbon on top of the sponge and there will be either glass blocks siliconed to the sides to keep the sponge from rising or i will use small magfloat magnets as i did with my other sump to hold the sponge in place. Whats everyone think?



Now heres a actual sump and 40 gallon breeder with a Warner marine as200 skimmer with cardboard templates for where the glass will go when i pick it up thursday. Sponge will rest about
halfway up the last chamber.



Looks good to me, i have to get the tank running this upcoming saturday/sunday so just wanted to get feedback on my sump.

Dennis

 

Looks good luv keep us updated with pics this weekend and let us know how it went.

 

looks good to me, I'd ditch the sponge just cause I've had issues with them in the past other than that looks exactly how I'd build one

 

I tried to avoid using a sponge with my last sump but to many bubbles got thru into the display and drove me nuts. I ended up having a over under over then added a sponge wall to stop microbubbles. Im trying to use last baffle area to save space by not having to add a sponge wall.

Dennis

 

Looks good. You can also use a filter socks instead of a sponge. I get rid of my bubbles using that method. Just change them out twice weekly. One where the water enters the sump and one at the skimmer output.

 

im not sure how the return pump sits on this tank, but try putting a PVC "L" on your return with the open end facing down just over the bottom piece of glass.so its sucking water from a wider area off the bottom of the sump, . this is what tangster told me to do when i made my sump and i was concerned about micro bubbles. i used to have sponges every were to stop bubbles , now i dont use a single sponge in my whole tank, and i dont miss cleaning them!

if your not sure what i mean i can take a pic.?

 

thanks for the advice bluephish. I know what u mean but im using one of the supreme mag drive pumps, they just came out and suck from multiple slots in a cyclinder type covering. Its not like the regular mags with a threaded end. I cant use filter socks cause its a tank at a business, cant risk something like that getting clogged and im sure they dont want me playing with it every couple days. Trying to keep maintenance at once a week.

Dennis

 

I would put the media place on the down flow of the baffles you are making. If you keep it on the upflow the water will always be trying to push the bag of media up. You will get real tired of that sponge as they take a lot of maintenance. Also make sure when the water is going in and out of the baffles that is is not falling for any distance because that just causes more bubbles to appear. It should just be a constant flow over the walls without a water fall effect.

 

In the sump that we just retired, there was a sponge in the baffle before the return pump....you have to keep an eye on it as the sponge got dirty the level above the return pump starts dropping....

We learned to watch this when we first saw lots & lots of bubbles being sprayed into the display tank....

 

sump is done, im not worried about sponge and maintenance. Ive used one in my 90 gallons sump for almost a year now, water flows fine, nitrates are always 0 and the baby trochus snails i have breeding in the sump feed off the sponge. once they get close to dime sized i throw em in the display. Otty, i know what u mean with the media and sponge getting pushed up, i use 2 little glass cleaner magnets to keep that from happening.

Dennis