I have finished building my stand for my 90gallon tank. I am new to the hobby, so the advice from this forum has been great. My questions today are concerning placement of the heater. I have a 20x16x10 (15 gallon) sump. I would like to hide the heater and other equipment in the sump, but the 300watt heater is 15 in. long. Should I buy two smaller watt heaters or is it possible to place this one in my built in overflow? Or is there a 300watt heater that is less than 12 in.? Any suggestions?
Next is again concerning my small sump and my worry of overflowing in a power outage. I put a check valve on my return line. When I shut off my return pump to test, other than a very small leak (Is this Normal?), no water was draining back into the sump. Is this a good thing to do or am I slowing down my return pump flow rate? If so, then other than buying a bigger sump, what are my options? It seems like I would have to have a very low water level in my sump to handle the water draining back into the sump in case of a power outage.
I've included a pic of my sump
Next is again concerning my small sump and my worry of overflowing in a power outage. I put a check valve on my return line. When I shut off my return pump to test, other than a very small leak (Is this Normal?), no water was draining back into the sump. Is this a good thing to do or am I slowing down my return pump flow rate? If so, then other than buying a bigger sump, what are my options? It seems like I would have to have a very low water level in my sump to handle the water draining back into the sump in case of a power outage.
I've included a pic of my sump
