Aquarium Sump Calculator

[Jgray152]

Unless you are factoring in the type of media and it's surface area, I would pretty much say that you cannot calculate the size of the sump.

No one can if you went by this rule. How did you come up with your result? Did you factor this in? If not, how do you know its correct? You don't need to factor in surface area because most media usd in wet drys have a ton of s/a available. Whether its bio bals, bio bale, scrubbies, etc. This is going way over board and is not needed. The ASC is not that precise in the calculations to determin the EXACT PERFECT NOT BETTER NO WORSE sump size. Its absolutly impossible.

Same goes for the ammonia produced. This is not factored in with anyones results. How do yo now that what you told him to use will be sufficient? Infact, you told him to use a 100 gal sump with absolutly no reference to the amount of bio media needed.

So your suggestion "bio tower that sticks out as much as possible" doesn't give him an idea of how high it should stick out. Here you are only refering to height and not the Width and length of the bio tower which can lower the height of the bio tower.

He should have a 120 liter bio compartment for bio media in his sump. He could use less if he went with the something like the Eheim substrate but thats a PITA to work with. That is calculating for a 550 gallon aquarium.

Also you can have the media in the water. This will allow you to have the much more extra media. Canisters work great with submerged media so telling him to not have any media submerged is not correct. I understand where you are comming from when refering to the oxygen but the media will still work great when some is submerged too.

 

[Jgray152]

I get about 1.25 gallons (160 ounces) of water flowback. I have about 8 ounces from the return, and the rest from the overflow.

Never heard of the term, "flowback" when talking about a sump. Care to explain a bit further?

 

[Ramesh]

How many inches below the water level will the output/intake be? So I can calculate the amount of water which will be siphoned from the tank during a pump shut down. Forgot to post that question, sorry.

I am wanting to have it drawing from as close to the surface as possible so an inch at the most.

 

[Jgray152]

I do say that I have a 20 gallon sump on my 75 gallon tank.

Wow it esploded, just to give you an idea about how my calc is doing when calculating sump sizes, you have a 20 gal sump on a 75 gal tank. The ASC tell me that you should have a 30 gallon sump with 17 liters of bio media. Pretty close and one up which is good. Reason its not calculating down to 20 gal sump is because of the bio capacity. Its telling me it won't hold 17 liters of bio media.

Here are the specs that were entered into the calculator.
Aquarium Dimensions: 48x18x20
Aquarium Siphon Volume: 2" level drop, 7.43 gallons.
Water Level in sump: 6" or 11.2 gallons
Error margin of: 5 Gallons. Meaning it will keep the full capacity of the sump 5 gallons under the total volume of the sump.

What are your specs? It will be interesting to compare with my calc.

I would actually like it to be down around 20 gallon sump so obviously there are still some fine tuning to do. Also the amount of bio volume is very high compaired to what you can get away with. I will probubly be reducing this slightly but just goes to show the saftey margin that this calc has.

The calc will only go down to a 20 gallon sump. So you could have a 5 gallon tank, it will tell you a 20 gal sump is what you need. lol. Maybe I will fix that though, put in a minimum and have the calc display a "minimum aquarium volume of ## has been reached".

The smaller the tank, the close the calc will be producing results closer to the 1/3 rule, but the larger you go, the further away it gets from the 1/3 rule. This is just how it happends and I have not entered in "1/3" anywhere in the calc.

 

[Jgray152]

8'x4'x2' (LxWxH) but it's actually going to be 240cm x 120cm x 70cm and I am having the water level at 65cm.
It's 1872L or 495gal.

The dimensions you gave me comes out to 527 gallons. 8'x4'x2' will be around 475 US Gallons.

I will used the dimensions 8x4x2 with a 2" level drop (instead of 1").

Seems a 80 Gallon (48x18x22) sump could work. Make sure there is about 110 liters of bio media available. Obveously this is going to depend on availability of the tank as well, so you may want to go bigger if it is what is available to you.

 

[Jgray152]

Wow it esploded, just to give you an idea about how my calc is doing when calculating sump sizes, you have a 20 gal sump on a 75 gal tank. The ASC tell me that you should have a 30 gallon sump with 17 liters of bio media. Pretty close and one up which is good. Reason its not calculating down to 20 gal sump is because of the bio capacity. Its telling me it won't hold 17 liters of bio media.

Infact, I would like it if lots of members would PM me with
1) their sump sizes and dimensions
3) dimensions of the bio media compartment
4) what type of bio media you are using
5) aquarium dimensions
6) stocking list
7) if you have had any problems at all.
8) water level in the sump while running
9) Pictures would top it all like a cherry on ice cream

 

[Jgray152]

Wow it esploded, just to give you an idea about how my calc is doing when calculating sump sizes, you have a 20 gal sump on a 75 gal tank. The ASC tell me that you should have a 30 gallon sump with 17 liters of bio media. Pretty close and one up which is good. Reason its not calculating down to 20 gal sump is because of the bio capacity. Its telling me it won't hold 17 liters of bio media.

Welp, I found the calprit for the high bio volume issue. I mistakenly nearly doubled my original bio volume amount per gallon when calculating, how I did this I don't know but its found and corrected. Now, the ASC will come up with 10 liters for 75 gallon aquarium. Still higher than you need but not crazy like 17 liters.

He should have a 120 liter bio compartment for bio media in his sump. He could use less if he went with the something like the Eheim substrate but thats a PITA to work with. That is calculating for a 550 gallon aquarium.

So, this is incorrect. A 70 liter bio compartment will be more than enough for a 500 gallon aquarium.

You could also go with a 55-70 gallon sump.

Reason its not calculating down to 20 gal sump is because of the bio capacity. Its telling me it won't hold 17 liters of bio media.

I need some sleep. The reason it was not calculating further than 30 gallons was because I had the sump level set to 6" and the error margin set to 5 gallons. Reducing the sump level to 5 inches and 20 gallon sump pops up. The new version I only have the sumps go up by 10 gallons, so 20,30,40,50 etc.. I may have it go up by 5 because it would have said 25 gal sump instead of 30.

 

[wow_it_esploded]

No one can if you went by this rule. How did you come up with your result? Did you factor this in? If not, how do you know its correct? You don't need to factor in surface area because most media usd in wet drys have a ton of s/a available. Whether its bio bals, bio bale, scrubbies, etc. This is going way over board and is not needed. The ASC is not that precise in the calculations to determin the EXACT PERFECT NOT BETTER NO WORSE sump size. Its absolutly impossible.
Oh I did not mean to imply that I liked that rule (the 1/3 rule, I think that is a little silly)...

I came up with my result by thinking about this... In a sump you need room for media, a pump, any bubble trap (it depends), a heater, and empty room to hold water and the margin for error. I kind of estimated from experience. Of course you could do a 30 gallon tank for a tank requiring 100liters of biomedia but the bigger the better right? I think so... a bigger sump takes advantage of teh extra water volume to dilute wastes.

I do think that you need to factor in media (if you are going the math route, rather than estimation) because someone could need a 55g sump filled t to the brim with scrubbies for a tank, while they might (just throwing out numbers, not real data at this point) be able to use a 20 gallon tank filled to the brim with ceramic rings.

Though I do realize it is impossible

Same goes for the ammonia produced. This is not factored in with anyones results. How do yo now that what you told him to use will be sufficient? Infact, you told him to use a 100 gal sump with absolutly no reference to the amount of bio media needed.

I was talking 100 gallons because of the volume added to the system.

So your suggestion "bio tower that sticks out as much as possible" doesn't give him an idea of how high it should stick out. Here you are only refering to height and not the Width and length of the bio tower which can lower the height of the bio tower.

I meant to specify (i thought i did... oh well) and the purpose of that was just I was suggesting keeping the biotower out of the water to get a wet/dry effect, giving the media a higher potential for bacteria (because of the oxygen)

He should have a 120 liter bio compartment for bio media in his sump. He could use less if he went with the something like the Eheim substrate but thats a PITA to work with. That is calculating for a 550 gallon aquarium.

Ok, but I still think that the larger sump is always better, if not only for more room to work it, maybe a hospital (not as in a disease, but for maybe a fish that got picked on an needs some time for their new fins to grow in) tank or a separation tank (if you have a really aggressive fish in your tank that will not accept a new tankmates you can put him in the sump and let the new fish establish territory)... Even maybe just the extra water volume to dilute the wastes of the fish, maybe giving you an extra day on your water changes.

Also you can have the media in the water. This will allow you to have the much more extra media. Canisters work great with submerged media so telling him to not have any media submerged is not correct. I understand where you are comming from when refering to the oxygen but the media will still work great when some is submerged too.

Another thing I get for posting when i am tired. I just meant that, with the same exact amount of media/surface area, you can host more bacteria (if the ammonia is increased) when they are not submerged. I happen to have a lot of submerged media in my sump... I buy a box of fluval biomax every time i order something off the internet or when I visit my lfs and throw it into the sump...

Never heard of the term, "flowback" when talking about a sump. Care to explain a bit further?

I meant the amount of water that flows back into the sump from the main tank due to the water level above the overflow and the depth of the return...

Here are the specs that were entered into the calculator.
Aquarium Dimensions: 48x18x20
Aquarium Siphon Volume: 2" level drop, 7.43 gallons.
Water Level in sump: 6" or 11.2 gallons
Error margin of: 5 Gallons. Meaning it will keep the full capacity of the sump 5 gallons under the total volume of the sump.

What are your specs? It will be interesting to compare with my calc.

Aquarium Dimensions: 48x18x20
Aquarium Siphon Volume: .5" level drop, about .13 gallons
Water Level in sump: 15 inches when running, about 15.5 when stopped
Error margin of: .5 Gallons. (yes i know, but it works and I have HOB filters on this sump!

Agh that only took a few hours!

 

[Jgray152]

Hello WIE ( to lazy to type in the full name but I am not to lazy to type this message or the rest of this post, go figured... lol)

If my posts come off a-holish, don't think its direct at you, its just how I word them. I agree and understand with everything you have said above.

Of course you could do a 30 gallon tank for a tank requiring 100liters of biomedia but the bigger the better right?

Understand what you are saying, I would never have 100L in a 30 gallon tank either and the calc will not allow this. I calculate for different compartment and give a "rough" dimension measurement for the calc to go buy when figuring how large of an aquarium the sump should be used on in comparison with the bio volume.

Agh that only took a few hours!

Thanks for posting this information. This will be greatly helpful through out the design of the ASC.

Can you give me the dimensions of the sump it's self? Calc won't go lower than 25 gal sump with your exact specs because it adds up more than 20 gal volume with the sump dimensions that are preprogramed into the calc for a 20 gal sump which are, 24x12x16. I think what I should do for major saftey is instead of the calc finding out if the siphon volume,pipe volume and sump volume is greater than the "rounded off tank volume number" given by the manufacture of the tanks, I should have the calc figure out the volume by calculating the dimensions of the sump. Because some tanks sy "50 gallons" when the dimensions equal to 46 or 47 gallons. This could really spill disaster. Another example, the dimension I gave for a 20 gallon sump equals 19.81 gallons. I do believe thats the outside dimensions too, so that make it even worse.

My main issue is trying to use the most common "tank dimensions" for a sump. 24x12x16 may be an "odd" size.

I would like to see what the "average" level drop in the aquarium is for most sump guys. So if anyone could let me know this too, that would also be great.

I was looking at commerical sumps last night and it just confirms my suspision about the 1/3 rule. There are 35 gallon commerical sumps for a 300 gallon aquarium. The 1/3 rule would give you a 100 gallon sump.

Now obveously, the sumps the calculator produces, you can make hold more or less bio media depending on your design, but I plan on, after the calc is finished, to have rough designs/dimensions available. I do, however, have the suggested bio volume in liters and I will try to get the calc to give suggested dimensions for the bio compartment depending on the dimensions of the sump size. Allow for room for mechanical, pump, heaters etc. If you wan't a large sump, you can easily set the "error margin" higher, say an extra 10-15 gallons or more.

Bigger can be better but there comes a time when bigger is over doing it and will not gain you anything except for less of a nitrate spike. Ammonia and Nitrite levels are reduced to a safe level by the BB. Your fish can't produce enough wast (once the filter is cycled) to produce a spike in ammonia that would ever reach the unsafe zone. Unless there is an underlying problem with the entire system ofcourse. Thats my take on it.

 

[Jgray152]

Snap shot of the newer version.