DIY Sump Diagram

[TomStav]

When building my first sump I found it hard to find a detailed diagram to work from so during the process of researching many diy sumps and combining many different sketches along with many unsuccessful attempts, I drew this, and it works great. So I thought I would share it incase anyone else is looking for direction when bulding a sump.

I would love to hear any comments/ suggestions you may have on how to improve the design.

Please feel free to use this design, all I ask is you leave some feedback on how it worked for you!

Now that I have had this sump running for 6 months or so I have a few alterations myself. Mainly I would have (and soon will once I get the time for a quick rebuild) inserted an extra panel in the 'IN' section to allow the water to drop in through a sock, opposed to the water rising, also since building the sump I have added a water level sensor, oppose to the traditional float types I added a small diafram type that simply senses the pressure when the water level drops and shuts of the return pump, and then back on automatically once the water level is back to normal.

I also made a diy overflow box that also hid two powerheads, again it worked great and I will share a diagram of the overflow sometime soon.

Hope this is helpful to someone!


Tom

 

[Smitty]

Good design. Does that allow for slow enough flow through the fuge so as not to disturb the sand?

The partitions are a max 13" tall, how tall is the tank?

 

[mr_X]

when the sensor detects a water level drop and shuts off the return pump, what raises the water level back up again? an auto top off?