Sump Plans

[mantis147]

Im in the process for making a sump for my reef tank, i am trying to find out what height size the baffles inside the tank have to be? the sump is 24"long 13"high & 12" wide. Pic is attactched.

 

[SkiFletch]

Depends, how big is the display tank and if power goes out in the main tank, how many gallons (or inches) of water will drain down into the sump before your overflow protection is reached? For example, in my 45g tank (36x12x24) during operation the water level is 0.75" above the teeth in my overflow box. For safety concerns, I calculated the water volume at 1" for some room for error. Therefore when the power goes out and my main pump goes off, the check valve on the pump side stops water flowing back into the tank. Furthermore if the check valve fails, holes drilled at the water surface from the pump return will break siphon. Then all thats left is that 1" of water to drain into the sump. Thats 36x12x1 or 432 cubic inches of water. So then during operation there should be 432 cubic inches of dead space in my sump. I designed my bubble walls so that there are ~500 cubic inches of dead space in my sump and when power goes out (as it just did for 3 days this past week) no flooding of the floor.

 

[mantis147]

Depends, how big is the display tank and if power goes out in the main tank, how many gallons (or inches) of water will drain down into the sump before your overflow protection is reached? For example, in my 45g tank (36x12x24) during operation the water level is 0.75" above the teeth in my overflow box. For safety concerns, I calculated the water volume at 1" for some room for error. Therefore when the power goes out and my main pump goes off, the check valve on the pump side stops water flowing back into the tank. Furthermore if the check valve fails, holes drilled at the water surface from the pump return will break siphon. Then all thats left is that 1" of water to drain into the sump. Thats 36x12x1 or 432 cubic inches of water. So then during operation there should be 432 cubic inches of dead space in my sump. I designed my bubble walls so that there are ~500 cubic inches of dead space in my sump and when power goes out (as it just did for 3 days this past week) no flooding of the floor.

Good point Skifletch!

The main tank is roughly 32"x12"x15" about 21 uk gallons so its not that much bigger, I should have plenty of room in the sump. I will still need to add a sump & some filtration at the inlet. I was just confused how to work the sizes for the baffles? If you have any ideas Ski please let me know! I am new to sumps, as i had a 80gallon marine without one and realised how much i should have had one! Im going to take my time on setting this one up so i get it right!

 

[SkiFletch]

Ok, when I'm bored at work I'll modify your drawing with dimensions

 

[SkiFletch]

That way even if your sump is only 10" wide you still have 21x10x5 of dead space across the refugium and return pump compartments which is 1050 cubic inches. You're probably only concerned with 1" of drain from the display which is 32x12x1 aka 384 cubic inches which is less than the dead space in the sump with that design

 

[Allen]

This is about the same size as the one Im setting up.

Im looking at a similar size sump.

What is the best option for getting the water from the main tank to the sump ?

I was thinking of drilling the rear of my tank for the outlet to the sump, would I just drill about 2 inch down from the top ?

I was thinking of some kind of home-made syphon effort with pipes, but the idea of pump failure breaking the syphon and then a restart not continuing the syphon and overfilling the tank kind of put that idea out of the window.

I guess if its drilled, it can never overfill ?

 

[mantis147]

This is about the same size as the one Im setting up.

Im looking at a similar size sump.

What is the best option for getting the water from the main tank to the sump ?

I was thinking of drilling the rear of my tank for the outlet to the sump, would I just drill about 2 inch down from the top ?

I was thinking of some kind of home-made syphon effort with pipes, but the idea of pump failure breaking the syphon and then a restart not continuing the syphon and overfilling the tank kind of put that idea out of the window.

I guess if its drilled, it can never overfill ?

When the water is pumped back into the tank from the sump it overflows into the sump inlet pipe and back down to the sump. From what ive read you only fill the sump so it leaves plenty of space incase the pump stops and all the water above the sump hole flows into the sump, this should stop any overflow.

Im not really sure on the hole sizes or pipe sizes, it has to be special piping to cope with the salt water.

 

[Allen]

exactly, so I reckon that if my drain hole is drilled into the back wall 1 inch from the top to the bottom of the hole, I will only ever get a maximum of 1" depth x 30" lenght x 15" width of water (someone work out the cubic capacity for me) draining into the sump if the pump fails for any reason.

 

[mantis147]

thats correct.

 

[SkiFletch]

exactly, so I reckon that if my drain hole is drilled into the back wall 1 inch from the top to the bottom of the hole, I will only ever get a maximum of 1" depth x 30" lenght x 15" width of water (someone work out the cubic capacity for me) draining into the sump if the pump fails for any reason.

Exactly, thats 450cubic inches (30x15x1 ). So during operation your sump should have at least that much dead space in it. If you drill, I'd install a Durso standpipe (just do a google search) with a small overflow box. You can put the durso mechanism in the box, or make the box small and have the durso mechanism exterior to the tank. If I had to do it all over again, I'd do a small internal box drilled with an external durso.