What should I put in my sump?

[Seedy J]

I recently bought a 75g setup that came with a nice 30g sump. I'm planning to do a planted tank, stocked with a bichir and probably some combination of rainbowfish, Denison barbs, and/or rainbow cichlids. I've never had one before, so what should go in the sump?

If I understand it correctly, the middle part is really the only place where I can put filter media (tank water overflows to the bottom of the left chamber, return pump is in the right chamber). I'm going to use some regular filter pads (the kind you get in a roll from the LFS) for mechanical filtration over the egg crate material. I was about to order some bio balls and ceramic rings until I read this thread - https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/beginners-guide-to-filter-media.88677/ , which says the bio balls don't work as well when they're completely submerged. I think I'm just going to get a bunch of pot scrubbers (https://www.amazon.com/Round-Nylon-Scrubber-Scouring-Scrub/dp/B0773VZ2P4) instead. Should I still bother with the ceramic rings? Any other suggestions?

 

[kno4te]

Lava rock is what I have in my sump. Works for me.

 

[Oughtsix]

Starting from the left.

Compartment 1: Direct the flow into the sump from the tank through a couple filter socks.
Compartment 2: Cut a big large pore sponge to fit in this area and fill the compartment. The water will flow up through the sponge in this compartment.
Compartment 3: The water is going to flow over the top of this compartment and the bottom of the compartment is going to see very little flow. You could use this compartment as a refugium and grow out some plants in there. If you are going to put media in this compartment you will need to force some circulation with air stones or a powerhead. OR you could even put a small fluidized moving bed in this compartment.
Compartment 4: Fill this with bio rings in bags sitting on top of the grid. If you are going to use a fluidized bed or a refugium fill compartment 4 with a sponge that is taller than the top of the partition to keep the fluidized media or baby fish in compartment 3. If you use compartment 3 as a refugium put a bag of bio rings under the sponge and on top of the grid.

An alternate approach might be to fill compartment 3 with scrubbies putting 3 or 4 large bubble wands underneath the scrubbies. Then put a fine pore sponge in compartment 4 for water polishing. The air wands will induce circulation while also providing oxygen to the bacteria and the water.

Another approach would be to add a partition in the middle of compartment 3 the same size and same height as the first partition. This would force the water to the bottom of the compartment and back up again forcing circulation in this compartment all the way down to the bottom. Unless you are just really excited about making alterations to a perfectly good sump this would be my least favorite option.

... just a couple ideas to spur your creativity!

 

[Lkelley]

Hey just wondering if a person could run two pumps. One pumping water into the sump and of course the return, or would it be to difficult?

 

[Tobiassorensen]

Hey just wondering if a person could run two pumps. One pumping water into the sump and of course the return, or would it be to difficult?

Never use pump from the tank to the sump. Always gravityfeed your sump with the pipes from the bulkheads. If you run a pump from the tank and the pump in the sump fails some way you will flood the sump and drain the tank on the floor.

 

[duanes]

Agree with Tobias, gravity is your best bet, pumping out of the tank to sump is a bad idea, unless you put the sump on a level above the tank, using gravity to bring water back to the tank.
And as far as one bio media being better than another, I have used them all over 60 years of fish keeping, lava rock, rings, bio-balls, fluidized media, Scrubbies, in some tanks no media at all, only the rocks and substrate, and all worked well.
How would you know if one is better or worse, you can only see how it works by testing your ammonia, nitrite levels, because its all about a bacteria population, and the bacterial population has more to do with your population of fish and how much urine (ammonia they excrete).
An ammonia laden, toxic tank might be perfectly clear.
A healthy tank might look brown or green, because bio-media doe not effect the look of the tank, only its invisible water quality health.
But if you want 1,000 pan size fish in a 1000 gallon tank (like some in aquaculture do), you might want a sump big enough to hold hundreds pounds of the best media, but in a normal aquarists tank, no way to know other than parameter tests, unless you want to count the bacteria on the tip of a pin and extrapolate. In a tank if you get ammonia,, you need more surface area(more media)


I use this 4 ft x 8"in diameter biotower above, filled with about 20 lbs of lava rock to filter about 500 gallons of tanks.
But in other tanks, a few bags of these, or lava rock work fine

or in some tanks, that have been running for years, nothing at all, except the equipment (pumps etc) in the sump, substrate, plants, and other decor in the tank.

 

[BichirKing]

any idea the gph that goes through your bio tower duanes ?

 

[duanes]

My average pump size is one in the 2000, to 3000 gallons per hour range, covering 3 to 5 tanks in doors, in the photo is was probably split so maybe 800 GPH.
Beside being a bio-tower it also fractionates.
Below is a video on full bore, so with head loss, mechanical sponge filtration, and 20% pressure loss in the venturi for fractionation, it is probably putting out approx, 1500GPH on a 500 gallon pond.
koi pond fractionation

 

[Seedy J]

... just a couple ideas to spur your creativity!

Lots of great ideas here, thanks! Compartment 3 - I had a feeling there wasn't going to be much flow through the bottom part of the compartment. I'm liking the idea to improve circulation through filter media with a powerhead here. I'm interested in fluidized beds but I've read that they're noisy, and this will be in my living room. A refugium with plants and a few small fish would be cool, but since the tank will eventually be heavily planted I wonder if it'd provide much benefit?

Never use pump from the tank to the sump. Always gravityfeed your sump with the pipes from the bulkheads. If you run a pump from the tank and the pump in the sump fails some way you will flood the sump and drain the tank on the floor.

Not a concern on this tank since it's got an overflow, but I was going to use a pump-assisted HOB overflow on a 135g I'm setting up (tempered glass, can't be drilled). Can it be done safely if you use a float switch that would cut the power to the return pump if the overflow pump fails?

 

[Tobiassorensen]

Lots of great ideas here, thanks! Compartment 3 - I had a feeling there wasn't going to be much flow through the bottom part of the compartment. I'm liking the idea to improve circulation through filter media with a powerhead here. I'm interested in fluidized beds but I've read that they're noisy, and this will be in my living room. A refugium with plants and a few small fish would be cool, but since the tank will eventually be heavily planted I wonder if it'd provide much benefit?



Not a concern on this tank since it's got an overflow, but I was going to use a pump-assisted HOB overflow on a 135g I'm setting up (tempered glass, can't be drilled). Can it be done safely if you use a float switch that would cut the power to the return pump if the overflow pump fails?

Never heard of a pump assisted HOB overflow? I have a HOB overflow on one tank only pump im using on ghat tank is the returnpump and a aqualifter on the overflow and that only sucks air out of the overflowtube.