Rubbermaid Sump

[zacdl]

I was thinking of sticking a little 10 gal or so rubbermaid container under there (Mainly to grow kelp and stuff to feed the fish with sometimes) but dont know how you plubm it. Can anyone help?


I think I know how it works, you have a pump running water up to the main tank and then the overflow thing sends it back down.

So,

I stick the stuff where it needs to go (the overflows and everything) I have the pump in the rubbermaid container, is that it or what?

I dont know if the container needs "walls" or whatever in there or not.

 

[zacdl]

Oh BTW I was planning on just having it run all the time, is this OK?

 

[RLG2182]

You should have it run 24/7, nonstop (unless you are cleaning the tank or doing water changes).

That's pretty much it... overflow box brings water down, pump brings water back up. Just make sure that the pump can't pump as fast as the overflow is rated for. Otherwise, you would end up with an empty rubbermaid container, an overflowing main tank, and a burnt pump. 8O If you put a valve on the return line, just make sure that it's on the exit end of the pump, not the intake.

One thing that I will ask others... how would you put baffles in a rubbermaid? :? Not sure if plexi glue would bond the rubbermaid to plexiglass, nor if silicon would bond the glass to the rubbermaid. Thoughts guys?

 

[Dr.Nate]

I have been looking into doing this very thing myself exept with a 20 gal aquarium instead of a rubbermaid container. And from what I have researched on here, that is it! You have to be careful that your overflow matches your return pump so there's no overfilling. And, yes, you can run it all the time. You can also check out the DIY section on here, that's what I've done and there's lots of good stuff. Let us know how it turns out!

 

[fishfreek]

What is described is a very basic sump and there isnt much to it. If you want to segment it out with part being a refugeium then you should wall off part of it as you wont want the pump sitting on a sand bottom of your refugium.

Its more important to make sure the overflow will process at least as fast as the proposed pump will return the water. The overflow will always only drain the tank as fast as the pump is filling the tank. If the pump fills the tank faster then thats when you have a problem. If the overflow has capacity to drain faster than the pump can return thats no real issue.

Additional plumbing would be the use of true unions so you can disconnect the pump from the plumbing and the tank from the plumbing for when you need to move the system or you need to swap out the pump for some reason. These true unions would go direcly after the overflow and directly above the pump. A ball valve can be added above the true union on the pump side so as to turn off the water flow from the pump for when you need to do pump maintance or also to throttle the pumps output if you find the pump is working faster than the overflow.

For a 30 gal tank I would suggest looking at the Mag5 or Mag7 pumps. FIgure out the head height from the bottom of the sump to the top of your tank and then use one of the many flow charts on the net to see how many GPH the pump will output at that given height.