Getting capacity out of sump

[natman2]

I doubt I am the first to think of this but may be worth a mention.

I have a make shift twenty gallon long sump that holds my skimmer heater and a extra hob filter and return pump for DT and fuge. As we all know you cant fill the sump to capacity in case of power loss. I never measured it but my plumbing holds easily two gallons of water. Kind of a waste of space.

Today I bought a rubber made container slightly larger than the twenty gallon sump. Emptyed out the sump, water change day any way, slid it down into the rubber maid container and refilled. Now I can fill the sump to capacity and in case of power outage it will overflow into the rubbermaid instead of floor.

Also takes any guess work out of top offs. Now just add fresh water until sump is at capacity.

 

[Gatorfreak]

I'm doing a very similar sort of thing. I have a wet/dry inside a 30 gal tank. The wet/dry is always filled to near the top and the surrounding area is what rises and falls with evap/topoff.

 

[runway1]

I'm building my stand now for a new 120 gal. I'm thinking of lining the bottom with a vinyl used to make shower pans. Then, bringing up along each side for 3"-4". Essentially, that makes the floor of the stand a big catch pan of 14 gallons. I have a 30 gallon sump that will be filled with about 25 gallons. That leaves me with about 19 gallons of room. I think this will work good too.

I considered a secondary tub, like you have, but I don't think it fits in my case. I'm building the sump to maximize my area under the stand, so I don't have the room for a secondary tub like that. Hope I don't spring a leak!

 

[SkinnyPete]

I would assume the only problem would be when power is restored, you have lost all that water. So, as you pump back to your main tank, your return chamber would not be completely full. I guess you'd just have to make sure you had enough water in the return chamber after the overflow so you are not running your return pump dry.