sump

[nofish4you]

OK, so ive looked through this thred and havent seen much in the way of sumps, ive seen alot of
skimmers, but not a full sump, so here is my issue/question, not sure the best way to go about setting
it up, talked to kim for about 3 hrs the other night (thanks kim) and well still looking for ideas, lol
just to see what everyone thinks, ill get some pictures up so you can see what it looks like, but any pictures
that others have of how theres is done would be helpful as well
thanks
Michael
p.s. the sump is for a 90 gal tank

[mbarizo]

Hi Michael,

You're welcome to visit my sump. However, if you spent 3 hrs chatting with Kim about how to properly setup a sump, you might not learn anything new visiting here. My reef display is 90 gallons too. viewtopic.php?f=16&t=2078

Mohri

[nofish4you]

Mori
lol we did spend alot of time talking to kim about it, but i know there is more than one way
to skin a cat so to speak, and just wanting more ideas/feed back of what has worked for others

[bill_c]

Can you give us an idea of what you want to accomplish in the sump? Are you just holding equipment? Will there be a refugium? What size sump can you accommodate in your stand?

Designing a sump in a thread like this is often an iterative process. If you give us an idea of where you are starting from, we can help with pros and cons of your current design and offer suggested improvements.

[jlemoine2]

I agree with Bill. Your sump design will greatly depend on your goals. In Mohri's example, he opted to separate his refuge and skimmer areas. Many folks combine these into one sump. Some folks prefer to filter the water through a skimmer section before routing water to a refuge, others like the display water to flow through the refuge first...

Give us details, and the advice will come soon after!

[mbarizo]

Yes, let us know what you have to work with.

If not, I'd always recommend maximizing the size of your sump. I like having display overflow go thru a BIG skimmer first, then flow thru a slow moving and dark cryptic area where detritus can settle out, where it can be removed easily. For this settling area, reefers have used a sump with a bottom shaped like an inverted pyramid with a spigot on the bottom. This is used to easily remove detritus with water changes, where gravity does all the work. After this, I think it's great to have a large well lit refugium with actively growing macroalgae. At the end would be the return pump, possibly two of them for redundancy. If you need, I think it's a good idea to have a DSB somewhere after the settling tank where it's dark. I think bubble traps are overused & not always necessary, as in a good sized sump you might not need one at all. Of course, it's also good to consider a place for putting GAC and phosphate media reactor. N and P are generally not exported equivalently, so keep that in mind.

The hard part is getting all of one's desired features to fit into an allocated space. I haven't been able to do it yet, with the space I've got.

-M