help me plan my sump for my 40 breeder

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In saltwater, bigger is almost always better. The minium size of your sump should depend on several factors:

Do you want a fuge in the sump?
Do you want a skimmer chamber?
Do you want bubble baffles?
How much backflow do you expect during a power outage?
How much evaporation tolerance do you want?

After you figure out the minium space, consider the greater stability excess water volume lends to a saltwater system.

As for the pump, measure head from the water level in the pump chamber to the water level in the aquarium. Find the power curve graphs for the pumps you are considering, and find one that pumps 400-600 GPH (6-10 GPM) at your head rating. I personally think you're better off with an underpowerd pump rather than overpowered. You'll have to suppliment your flow rate anyway, and an overpowered pump will be noiser and burn more electricity without much benifit.

If you want to keep softies, your total goal flow should probably be around 10x, or 750 GPH. Since your overflow can only take 600 GPH, consider a closed loop or powerheads to cover the diffrence between your sump flow and your goal flow. Since closed loops and powerhead don't have to worry about head, just add together thier ratings with the sump flow to see how you're doing.
 
sum1serin said:
Plus, I see all these sumps with the plumbing where it has what can only be a shut off valve to close the pipe?
Some people get overpowerd pumps and throttle them down with those valves. In my opinion it's a complete waste of power and it's going to shorten the life of the pump. Sure it's upgradable to a larger tank later, but are you sure now what size you're going to upgrade to next?
 
Okay, so if I can get a 30 gal I will, but if not, I'll stick with the 20 long, since that should still allow for power outage.

But what do you mean by adding in power heads to make up for the sump flow? If I can find a pump to do 600gph with the head included, what would there be to supplement since it would be equalled out to the overflow rate?

I do understand that having a powerhead in the tank increases circulation and allows for more oxygen exchange, plus movement for the corals, right?
 
You may want more flow within the tank than your overflow can handle. If you add a powerhead or two directly in the display tank, you can provide the current corals prefer without going over the rated capacity of your overflow.

A rule of thumb is that a reef tank should have 10 times the volume of the tank circulated per hour, in your case, that's 750 GPH. Your overflow can't handle 750 GPH, so lets say you find a pump that runs at 550 GPH at your head. 750-550=200 You could put one 200 GPH powerhead, or two 100 GPH powerheads, or one 200 gph closed loop in the tank to suppliment your flow.

High flow rates are important to corals and anenomes, because they do not actively hunt food, but rather wait for food to come to them on the current. If there is a stagnant spot around one of your corals, it won't be able to eat enough.
 
Okay! I understand much better....Any suggestions on a good pump if not Mag?

Now.. any help with plumbing? what I need? heh.
That's my next confusion.. well that and lighting, but lighting is a whole nother thread.
 
Well, Mag is a fine pump, but maybe the 9.5 is a bit much. Lets see... 56" is between 4 & 5 feet... Mag 7 would give you around 500 GPH, Mag 9 would give you around 750 GPH. I'd go for the Mag 7. Mag is a pretty reputable pump.

Plumbing: Use Spa Flex in place of rigid pipe and elbows where practical. Put the system together with a minimum number of fittings. Use threaded fittings or union fittings where you think you might want to be able to disassemble later. (A must if there is any hard pipe running below the bottom of the aquarium. You may want to be able to put the aquarium in a truck some day.) Drill an anti-siphon hole right below the water line. Follow directions on PVC primer/cement cans, it's pretty easy.
 
But I can easily have just two pipes running? I see these sumps where there are multiple pipes when there is only two holes coming from the tank.
 
Oh yes, only two pipes for the main up-down route, unless you want to T off your drain line to feed a fuge, or a DIY skimmer. Other reasons for rats nests of pipes include closed loops, multiple overflows, in-line heaters, other in-line equiptment....

You may want to branch the return line to distribute the flow around your display a bit.
 
Well, I figured I'd have one of those tubes that seems to have the bubble shape... they tend to be black, and it splits off in two... sorry I can't describe it any better.

in-line heater? how so? heh.

And a DIY skimmer.... are those any good? What I wouldn't kill for to not have to spend so much money on a skimmer (although I know it's good)... I hear people doing without a skimmer... hmm. Any input?

And yes, you have been a wonderful help!
 
sum1serin said:
Well, I figured I'd have one of those tubes that seems to have the bubble shape... they tend to be black, and it splits off in two... sorry I can't describe it any better.
Are these what you're thinking of?

sum1serin said:
in-line heater? how so? heh.
If you have enough room in the sump, it's much cheaper and easier to put a normal submersable heater in the sump. However some people have equiptment left over from thier canister days, and have in-line heaters, that get plumbed into the return line, that heat the water flowing through them.

sum1serin said:
And a DIY skimmer.... are those any good? What I wouldn't kill for to not have to spend so much money on a skimmer (although I know it's good)... I hear people doing without a skimmer... hmm. Any input?
It can vary greatly depending on the features. I've seen skimmers put together really cheaply that work pretty well, but wern't very cleanable. I think the design I scrapped for myself ended up being $40 or so by the time I got in there enough screw-on and union fittings to make it easy to clean. I could buy a low-end skimmer for that price and not have to worry about designing it correctly. The idea in a DIY skimmer is to maximize the time that water and air bubbles are in contact with one another. There's a really good article by Shane Graber that you should read if you want to build your own skimmer.

As for going without a skimmer, that depends on what you're keeping. Skimmers are good for keeping nitrates down, because they remove organics from the system instead of encouraging them to break down like your biological filter does. If you want to keep the more sensitive corals, a skimmer is a good idea. If you have a large saltwater aquarium and a nano, the nano can get frequent water changes from the large aquarium to keep the water stable and do without a skimmer. A fish only tank can go without a skimmer.

sum1serin said:
And yes, you have been a wonderful help!
Glad to help.
 
Are these what you're thinking of?

Yes, those are what I'm talking about.... is that good?

I've heard you don't need a skimmer until a few months in, is that also correct?

I don't want to spend extra money on a skimmer if I can get an economically priced skimmer instead.

And I just want to be secure on this... a 20 gal long will be fine for a sump? including overflow? or would a 20 gal high be better?

I just want to get a few things known concrete so that I feel a sembalenc of organization.

:)
 
sum1serin said:
Yes, those are what I'm talking about.... is that good?
They're certianly popular, although I've not tried them myself, so I can't really say.

sum1serin said:
I've heard you don't need a skimmer until a few months in, is that also correct?
Some people belive that you should cycle without the skimmer running. I think if you go for gulf rock with lots of life on it, it's worth it to run the skimmer, but if you have fiji or other rock that's just the bacteria and coralline, the skimmer isn't needed during the cycle.

sum1serin said:
I don't want to spend extra money on a skimmer if I can get an economically priced skimmer instead.
See if there's a local aquarium club near you. You might be able to get good used equiptment there. Also keep an eye on your newspaper's classified ads.

sum1serin said:
And I just want to be secure on this... a 20 gal long will be fine for a sump? including overflow? or would a 20 gal high be better?
20 gallons is 20 gallons, the high won't have more overflow protection. The long is more easily modifiable if you want to add baffles and such.
 
20 gallons is 20 gallons, the high won't have more overflow protection. The long is more easily modifiable if you want to add baffles and such.

But with a 75gal, I should be okay with overflow and it not flooding, right?
 
sum1serin said:
20 gallons is 20 gallons, the high won't have more overflow protection. The long is more easily modifiable if you want to add baffles and such.

But with a 75gal, I should be okay with overflow and it not flooding, right?
What size pipes are you using? Are you going to partition off any chambers?

20 gallons should be fine, unless you're planning on the majority of that space going to fuge and skimmer chambers.

The overflow area of the sump should be greater than the volume of water in the pipes, plus a little extra if your anti-siphon hole is under the surface of the water.
 
Bah!! too many questions. ;)

Actually, I have no cluse what size pipes... not even to plumbing yet... but the tank is a Perfecto 75 corner flow... I dont have it yet, untill paycheck comes out...

I dont really plan on having a fuge... I will have the skimmer in the overflow chamber.. opposite of the intake...
 
sum1serin said:
I will have the skimmer in the overflow chamber.. opposite of the intake...
Interesing choice. I've not seen that configuration before, let me know how it works out.

So you don't need much water in your sump at all, you'll have plenty of room.

If you're not having any partitions in your sump, you may want to consider a sponge prefilter on the return pump to cut down on air bubbles.
 
Interesing choice. I've not seen that configuration before, let me know how it works out.

Is that not how it always is?

wouldn't the skimmer be put where the water flows down into the sump? rather than where it goes up? or is it opposite?

And I was actually going to ask you what you thought about having some filtering things inside the sump..... of course a filter, bio balls? On a 300 gal tank at our store, we have a sump under it that just has filtering material like shavings of PVC.. .think that would be good for it?
 
Oh, I thought you meant protien skimmer, which is something completely diffrent than surface skimmer.

Surface skimmer: any method of filtration input that takes a portion of the water from the surface of the tank. Examples: overflow boxes, canister filter skimmer adaptors. If you have an overflow chamber, there is no need for a seperate surface skimmer.

Protien Skimmer: a filtration unit that forces air and water to mix, producing a waste foam of organic materal. This is usually placed in the sump, or is a hang-on-back variety.

Filtration in sump: if you have enough live rock in the display tank (1 lb/gallon) then all you really need is a protien skimmer. A fuge can be helpful, filled with either live rock rubble or macro algaes depending on your goals.
 
I plan on having a protein skimmer in the sump... I may be able to have a small amount of rock rubble in the sump, but must it be lighted? Just probably not alot of room for frags and everything else. lol.

I hear alot of people putting Cheato in there... where can you find that stuff? and is it really good?
 
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