20 gallon sump

[chrismikea]

ok i have a 20 gallon tank that i want to make into a sump. can someone please help me out with this.

[Reef69]

..I dont think there is much you can do with a 20 gal. tank.

[chrismikea]

i dont want to do anything with it i just want to make it a sump

[Reef69]

ok..put it onder the stand, throw your return in, make sure the overflow(s) are shotting into the 20 gal. ..POOF!..you have a sump.

[chrismikea]

well iam going to explain my problem, i have a ten gallon tank that is already up and running. it is a undrilled ten gallon. i have a undrilled 20 gallon that fits under my stand that i want to use as a sump. but i also have no idea how to make a sump, so can someone please help me with this

[sunvsat]

What he 's saying is that if that is all you want the tank for, that is all you need to do, On the other hand, if you want it to help filter or pull proteins out of the water, you can baffle it and have a place for the protein skimmer, heater, sand , lr, macro algae, baffled return compartment and then your good to go. What do you want it to do, other than just increase your water volume???

[Reef69]

A sump is a place to put your gadgets in. i.e Skimmer, heater, and any other apparatus you want to put in there (UV sterilizer). A sump and a refugium are 2 totally DIFFERENT things. In a 20 gal. tank you cant have both (no space). I dont know if the make overflow boxes for 10 gallon tanks, but if you find 1..add 1 to it, and run your overflow down to the 20 gal. , add a return, and throw your gadgets in there..You dont have to baffle anything to make it work properly.

[hobogato]

can't help you now, but if you can wait until next week, i will help you design and put in baffles. i have some plexiglass scraps, so all it will cost you is a tube of silicone and some time. pm me with a phone # so we can talk about it.

[sunvsat]

In a 20 gal tank sump, if you don't have any baffles, you will most likely have a bubble bath going back to your tank. The water stream created from your overflow to your sump will create bubbles that the length of tank will not give them time to dissipate. You also may have bubbles from your skimmer,Baffles are the way to go. I've seen baffles on much bigger sump tanks to cure the wayward bubble program. Thanks Hobo for offering to help him out.

[Reef69]

In a 20 gal tank sump, if you don't have any baffles, you will most likely have a bubble bath going back to your tank.

I disagree. I had a 20 gal. tank as a sump on a previous tank I had. It had no baffles of any type and never had a bubble problem. I had a heater (Ebo Jager 100 watt.) and a Seaclone Protein Skimmer. The only thing i did, was rubberband some filter media on to the out take of the skimmer so the water wouldnt splash in the sump. I had a mag 7 as a return and would get micro bubbles when my water level went down, so, keep your water level where it should be, and you'll be fine.

[GeoB]

You need to either drill the 10 gallon or use an overflow box to get water from the tank to sump. Here's a link to a small overflow box: http://www.northcoastmarines.com/wet_dry_filters.htm Run a line of pvc, flexible pvc, or spa tubing from the bottom of the overflow to the sump (this is the drain line).

Next, put a submersible pump in the sump and run some flexible tubing from the pump to an outlet that hangs on the back of the tank,like this: http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=FT0001 . I don't know what size pump to recommend for a 10 gallon tank.

There are two types of failure with sumps that can result in a wet floor. One is a siphon break in the overflow or a clog in the drain line while the return pump is still running. If the volume of water that the return pump is sitting in is more than the unused volume in the tank, your tank will overflow. To prevent this, create a compartment at one end of the sump for the return pump to sit in that is smaller than the un-used volume in the tank. This can be done with a pane of glass or plexiglass and some silicone. This will be a challange for you since a 10 gallon tank has a really small un-used volume.

The other failure is the failure of not having adequate un-used volume in the sump to accomadate the water that drains from the tank and overflow when the return pump shuts off. Most of the water that drains from the tank after shutoff is from the siphon effect in the return line that is attached to the pump. When the pump shuts off, water in the line reverses flow pulling water from tank until the water level is below the return outlet. A small hole in the return outlet just below the water line of the tank can reduce the amount of back siphon.

If you use a protein skimmer in your sump or if your drain makes a lot of splash, you will get microbubbles. This is only a problem if the return pump pulls them in and puts them in your tank (unsightly). You can prevent this with baffles between the source of bubbles and the return pump. I use pieces of plexiglass cut to a size that can be lightly wedged across the width of the sump. One baffle that goes from above water-line down to an inch or two above the bottom of the sump may be adequate. If not, another baffle from the bottom of the sump to 1 or 2 inches below the water line and third one situated like the first should do it.

[matt]

A 20 gallon sump/refugium for a 10 gallon tank is a GREAT idea and will dramatically improve your tank's health. I suggest that you spring for a new 10 gallon (usually less than $10) and get it drilled for a 3/4" bulkhead and put a small corner overflow; you could even do a mini calfo style. The reason to get a new tank is so you can quickly and easily transfer your creatures into it; since the drilling and overflow will cost alot more than the tank itself. It's worth it. Using a hang on overflow on such a small tank is a big mistake; you won't be pushing much water through it, and that's when they tend to lose their siphon.

Don't worry about the micro bubbles; actually the water in the 20 gallon sump will be moving twice as slow as in the main tank; this makes it perfect for a refugium. Assuming you're going to use a submersible return pump, you just need to make a little partition for it, so that sand from the refugium does not get into the return pump. You just need an area with lots of live rock rubble where the flow from the tank comes down to help disperse the bubbles. Ideally, you'll put a baffle there, so that the tank water flows down over the liverock rubble, then must flow over a baffle to fill the main sump area. This should be alot higher than the partition to keep stuff out of your pump. Then in the main section you can put a sand bed and some live rock (small pieces) and a decent light, and you can grow macroalgae and a healthy population of small animals; this will really help your tank.

For a skimmer, just put a hang on skimmer on the sump; somethng like a prizm will do fine and it's pretty cheap. This is almost exactly the set up I had on my old 10 gallon reef, which was a very healthy and stable tank, and I only had a 5 1/2 gallon sump/refugium due to space.

Another great thing this will allow you to do is set up an automatic kalk dispenser/auto top off. When you get to this point, let me know and I'll post how I did it; you need a big glass jug, a 2 hole rubber stopper, some pyrex pipe, and some surgical (or tygon) tubing.

[bigdscobra]

Becarefull when you get the 10gallon drilled VERY thin glass I broke 2 when making one into a fuge. A custom overflow box would be alot better.

[edvas]

pm me chris and i'll send you a diagram of the one i built. easy to build.

Ed

[longhorn_20m]

Since the 10 gallon is setup already, drill the 20, plug the hole, transfer everything over to it, then add baffles to 10 and setup it up as the sump, unplug the overflow and let her go.