Sump advice

Well as some of you know im battling some red slime issues. Come to find out the phosphate is high and nitrate issues are around 20. Well after some self discovery im looking at making a new sump to make room for a carbon reactor and a phosphate reactor. My sump design now really sucks, I have from the picture left to right the fuge were the overflow goes to, trickle down to skimmer, trickle down to return. I can see this is a issue and was warned when I first started by you know us noobies we go with what it is. Plan is to have a 30g wide with 4 chamber, 1 for overflow which will house the reactors, skimmer chamber, return chamber (in or near the middle), small fuge chamber to mainly just grow cheato. Heres a pic of the sump as it stands now, 1 major thing I dont like about this is that its friggin tall as hell. tell me what you guys think. ****Dont joke the mess under there I thru everything in last night****

 

I do not see anything terribly wrong with your sump by the pics in all honesty. Why not grow your macros there on the left? Also, reactors can be mounted externally, they do not have to go in-sump.

 

I def am going to fix the overflow the way its setup if you think its all good. Never thought about doing them externally. Scared they would leak although it would be easier to replace the carbon and such. Would you recommend them being hung on the back of the DT or HOB in the sump?

 

If you do something like the Little Fishes reactors, they do not even need to be hung. You can set them next to the sump and just run the lines up and over in to it. That is how I have them set up on mine.

 

Awesome thats what I was looking at getting, I have room in the back so I will just put both of them back there. What pump do you use for yours?

 

k did somethign a little different since im going to put the carbon/phosphate on the outside. I fixed my overflow to my fuge, it was constricted since it falls and just drops strait down. I put a 90 degree elbow and have no trickle type thing and the amount of flow to my fuge is great now so hopefully the slime down there will start to disperse very soon. Just want my water to start becoming clean, looks like alot of debri or whatever in it so cant wait to get these damn reactors.

 

I use a mini-jet mn404 on my reactor, closed almost all the way

 

hey

i was under the impression that water threw a refug was sposed to be slow so the macro could pick it up easyer and be more efficient at cleaning yer water the red slime could be due to the light u are using, i had red slime issues when i started out and changed the light the slime was gone pretty quickly
just my thoughts..
good luck

 

Ya the lights are brand new sundials. Only macro I have in there is the cheato