Help Design My Sump!

[Pheonix]

Heya guys i need your help

I now have a 35"long x 20"high x 19.5" deep sump tank! wooohoooo
In the sump i plan to have a DSB and lots of live rock also it will hold a HOB skimmer and Trickle filter plus a heater!

The sump will be lighted!

Now for the hard bit, i have 6 pieces of glass already cut too width, 4 pieces are 11" high and 2 are 15" high!
Please can you give me some suggestions as to lay it out all help will be greatly appreciated!! to space for the reture has to be at least 4" wide as the is slightly bigger than my return pump!! Other than that, go to town im quite diy friendly so dont mind a bit of work!

Thanks
Andy

 

[SkiFletch]

Well, lemme start by asking why run the skimmer as an HOB? Just about any skimmer I know of can be run in-sump and doing so will be MUCH safer. After that, consider 3 challenges, first, making the DSB large enough to be effective. Second, being able to clean the DSB. And third, making sure that the return pump compartment is not too small making dealing with evaporation difficult to deal with.

What return pump are you going to use?

 

[Pheonix]

my skimmer is a HOB i have no other option, its a Prizm, thats why its hob. I mean i can put it physically in the sump but it makes no difference and if i hang it on the back of the sump i have more room for LR and LS

I thinks the dsb will be about 2 foot or just over and 3" deep, cleaning planning on using critters for that, lots of them!!

My return pump is an eheim, its not a 1262 but i purchaced it many years ago and it was powerful at the time so ill have to look up the GPH etc im sure its strong enuff though when i used to run a UV on my old tank this pump pumped water from my cabinet under neath through the uv and back to the tank no worries

hmmmm what else...

 

[SkiFletch]

Well, I'm not so much worried about the capacity of the pump since its an eheim, but I am worried about the exact specs on it since you need those to match the overflow

As for the prism... Well you allready have it so you can use it, but those things are pretty junky so dont expect good performance out of it. If its new and can still be returned, go ahead and do that cause there are far better options out there. Either way, trust me, run the skimmer inside the sump. The first time it goes haywire and spits water and skimmate out the top, you'll have wished that it dripped back into your sump instead of all over your floor

And lastly, a DSB needs to be at least 8" deep to truly function as a DSB. A more desireable option in a smaller sump like yours and mine is a 2" sand bed over a plenum