How to silence my tank?

[mound]

Ok - this may sound silly, but I have a big aquarium in the same room as a home recording studio. It's a Marineland JetStream system, using overflows and a sump (at Tidepool2). The sump sits under the tank in a stand that has doors on the front and is open on the back.

The tank itself is pretty silent, but the sump is not. I hear the pump and the water splashing down into it.

I'm looking for suggestions on how I can silence this. I was thinking like styrofoam panels or something.. maybe I could better enclose the sump or something.. I can't just stuff pillows inside and all around because they'd get pretty grose with the water and all

Thoughts?

 

[Bearfan]

Do you have a lid on your sump? This helped mine considerably and the evaporation decreased. Also, is your supply line under the water level of your sump, or does it splash down on a filter area?

 

[mound]

it splashes down through filter media (though there is probably less than an inch between the line and the top of the filter media).. then it trickles over a biowheel.

If I could figure out a good way to cover it, I can see that cutting some of the noise..

 

[got bait?]

I am going to be building a sump soon too, and I thought about the same problem.
I am going to combine sump/fuge so I am going to have some lights. A lid sounds like the way to go, but wouldn't it hinder the lights for my macros? Would just a thin piece of plexi-glass stop enough light to hinder the macro growth?

 

[justDIY]

go to your fav musician supply store and get some sound baffling foam... and line your sump cabinet (including the doors, the bottom and top as well) with it.

also if the back of your cabinet is open, close it off and foam it too.

if you can't find the sound absorbing foam, fiberglass insulation works too.

these suggestions will help some, but not going to eliminate the noise, even if you can't hear it with your ear, the equipment will still hear it, and it'll be more background noise in your recordings ... that may or may not be a problem and is probably easily removed digitally.

another solution which is rather expesnive would be to move the sump to your basement or another room, for this you'd need to upgrade your pump and put in some plumbing.