How Is This For A Sump Setup?

[haulme]

At the moment I have a 50 UK G tank. This tank is house on a cabinet that has a cannister filter on one side and just fish food etc on the other side.

The tank is about 36" long and cabinet is split so I have realistcally around a 15" space to fit.

If I have a 15"X15"X24"(LWH) tank would that be good as a sump. Thats roughly an extra 20 UK gallon.

My plan is to have the feed from the tank go to the filter first to get rid of all the immediate nasties first. Then go from the filter to the sump. Then the sump to the tank via a powerhead.

Thinking of putting some Chaeto, some cheap base rock and transferring some of my existing LR from the tank. I'll also put my heater and my skimmer in there.

In terms of lighting for the algae can you buy some form of submersable lighting or is it better to have some form of uniform lighting at the top?

Also would this increase my stocking capacity also? So potentially I could have a 70G tank.

What do you guys think of my master plan?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[SkiFletch]

Sounds like a plan. Make sure you select a return pump to the tank that can handle the vertical head it must push through, and that you design our overflow system to accomidate this. How are you planning on overflow? Drilled, durso, weir, box? For lighting, just standard overhead lights will be fine. The sump would increase your stocking in terms of number of fish, but you'd still be limited by the 36" length of your tank as far as choosing larger fish

 

[dylema]

My plan is to have the feed from the tank go to the filter first to get rid of all the immediate nasties first. Then go from the filter to the sump. Then the sump to the tank via a powerhead.

Do you mean having the canister outlet into the sump? if this is the case it would be a very delicate balancing act to match the return pump from the sump with the flow of the canister. also I believe most canisters will continue to syphon when turned off (when set up in such a way) if you don't have some sort of check valve thingo.

Just a thought anyway.

 

[Fatty]

Good plan, but..

As Dylema said you can't have a pump running into a sump. For a belt and braces no spill scenario you must always have pump or pumps pushing water from the sump into the main tank, and letting the main tank overflow return to sump. Unless of course your sump is over the tank, in which case it's called something else, can't remember.

You could try to have shut off valves etc. to stop accidents but you can bet something would crawl into somewhere and stop the saftey working.. Don't do it!!

I had my tank drilled in the base and a durso (well not a durso) just a standpipe cut at an angle with a short piece of pipe in the top to control air intake to stop noise.

If doing it again I would have a mini overflow taking up just the top corner area of the tank with the overflow pipe coming out the back, to allow more space in the tank.

The bigger the sump the better, but aslong as you can fit the needed equipment in it and a bit of macro algae they are a well needed addition in my opinion.

Maybe incorporate some bubble traps/baffles if you're going to have a high flow due to the small sump size.

I just copied a standard sump you can get at your LFS, think it as a DSB or miracle mud sump.

Good LUck