Thats it!!! im Sumping!!!

Hello all,

Right so after i have tested my water and saw a nitrate spike i freaked out and want to now throw myself into a home made sump, here are the details.

My tank is 180 l with a 200 l capacity skimmer (hence why my sump will be composed of a 20 l tank) now the difficulty is that the tank is set on top of a rolling draw desk thing...but whatever thats for me to figure out.

so yea the idea is this, to have a 20 l tank divided in 3 sections with plexiglass so as to create some kind of over flow (not sure if this is the right term) the first section will be where the water is SIPHONED down from the main display and will also hold the skimmer (who since will be in a draw will not make much noise and ill be able to run it 24/7) the second section, or middle section will be composed of a live sand bed and will serve as a refugium, finally the third and final part will be where the pump (hoping to use the one that came with my bio box) will push the water back up to the main display.

now my technical questions are this;

firstly is a siphon enough? I was thinking to control the siphon suck by adding a kind of tap to regulate the flow so as to have a balance between the water being sucked down, cleaned and pumped back up.....would this work you think?

will the pump that came with my bio box have enough strength to push water up about a 1.5m tube? (i guess this boils down to the pump pumping capacity, what would you fine individuals recommend in strength for this job?)

is a 20 l sump enough for a 180 l tank?

and finally once the "clean" water comes back up is it a good idea to have it come out right next to a power head so its quickly distributed?

See diagram project below

 

you need to use some sort of overflow on your tank to feed the sump. and not a siphon. and the pump size is what regulates the flow. if the pump is to big you can use a valve slow it down and regulate it.

 

There are many ways to skin a cat – now, I don’t know why anyone would want to…but that’s between them and the law.

Anywho … let me start by saying I am not a fan of your design, I prefer slow refugiums – that’s not a knock against what you have as this will work well for you, just a personal preference. That being said. You would install a ball valve on the drain and return – this will give you the ability to get the power of the return and drain in equilibrium. I am bad with conversions – I work in gallons. So I don’t know what 20 l is. But it seems mathematically to be 10% and I would think that’s a little small, but doesn’t mean it won’t work. Most importantly to answer is; will it contain your equipment and will it be large enough to support the reverse flow during power outage. The return is fine, be it at flow or otherwise. As homegrowncoral said, siphon is not a good idea - unless you have it designed with a siphon break for power outtages. But you would always need to manually restart the siphon afterwards ... yuck

 

hmmm, thx for the quick feed back, you people are against siphons in case of a power shortage, as it would continue to suck down water and not pump it back up right? its not a technical matter? i mean we dont get power shortages often in Geneva but yea it does happen from time to time. could a way to avoid spilling damage be to have the siphon tube in the main display roughly 5 l in the tank (1/4 the sump size), so even if there is a power out it will only ever really be able to suck out 5 l (but now that i think about it it will still over flow if the sump is even only 70% full at all time + considering the return flow.....argh!). my issue is that im a little tight on space already so overflow isnt really an easy option. would a pump inside the main display work as a replacement?

 

no you will never get the 2 pumps regulated to match flow, and it would still siphon on shut down of power.

 

mais merdeeeee, alright gonna have to look into cheap home made overflows.

 

if your handy you can make one out of parts you have laying around maybe, i have made a few, best to try to model it after one like they sell. i like the utube style best myself.
some guys like to drill there tanks for an overflow. but this can be tricky.

 

hmm drilling is out of the question

 

if you are after the advantages of the refugium and have room above the tank you could make one out of a plastic tub with an overflow, and could pump the water up from the tank and flow through the refugium and drain back to the tank.

 

glad to see you survived Irene my NC friend! i once saw a video of someone cutting a hole in their tank with a drill and the entire glass broke - i would be way too afraid to drill or cut into my tank even with a nice glass bit. large tanks go for so much money, even if its acrylic you can still really screw this up by cutting into it!

Just wondering, Swisswiss you said you have a 180g and you do not have a sump? Or are you just upgrading, i'm confused. looks like you have a huge chiller and a nice set up outside! (btw do chillers also warm tank water or just keep it below a certain degrees, seems like you can set them to any temp???)