Sump setup help!

[Aaron Davis]

Hello everyone,

I'm relatively new to this hobby so I am learning as I go. I purchased my tank setup used. It's a 55 gallon bowed front acrylic tank. It's on a solid wood stand with a 20 gallon sump tank below. So here's my question. My sump tank has baffles and all that were pre-placed by the previous owner. However, the baffles are crap. They're all cracked and some have large pieces missing from them, thus making them useless as dividers between the different chambers. The tank currently houses a heater, live rock, and a return pump that is entirely too powerful for my tank (1750 gph). The sump also has a considerable amount of sand all throughout. If the water level gets too low, the return pump starts throwing sand into the display. So here's my idea. I want to drain the sump, remove the sand, and replace my return pump with a 550 gph pump from BMS. Obviously, this is going to change or affect the water level throughout the rest of the sump, which in turn would affect the Reef Octopus skimmer that I'm going to be installing. What's the best way to modify or fix this sump so that it works as intended without issues? Replacing baffles, their placement, etc? The skimmer came with my purchase as well, but hasn't been working due to having to replace the pump for it. So this skimmer will be a new addition for me. Thanks for any help!

Aaron

 

[Aaron Atkinson]

Hello. Like you, I have a 50 gallon tank with a 29 gal sump underneath. I imagine you have a typical layout, return area, some middle section (or not) and a return pump section.

So, the water level in your section or sections before your return pump area will remain the same no matter what pump you have. The depth of water in the non-return pump sections is controlled by the baffle height, not water flow rate. The depth of water the skimmer sits in effects its performance. The skimmer manual should have the recommended depth. You can achieve it basically 2 ways: a spacer under the skimmer to raise it or modify the baffle height in your sump which can raise or lower the water level.

I would suggest an auto top off system to keep your water level up. (This is good for salinity stability as well). As water evaporates the loss is seen in the return pump section of your sump. You can tune the depth of the water in the return pump section by adding or removing water. It doesn't matter where you add or take out, it will always show in the return pump section. I have a small piece of electrical tape on the sump's outside wall to mark the range I want to achieve after water changes, for example. I keep the water level in the return pump section a few inches above the pump housing with no issues.

I have never built a sump, however this site is full of folks who have. I suggest you look here or on the web for sump design. It will give you great insight and ideas for how to achieve what you are looking for.

 

[Homestead_Dad]

Hello everyone,

I'm relatively new to this hobby so I am learning as I go. I purchased my tank setup used. It's a 55 gallon bowed front acrylic tank. It's on a solid wood stand with a 20 gallon sump tank below. So here's my question. My sump tank has baffles and all that were pre-placed by the previous owner. However, the baffles are crap. They're all cracked and some have large pieces missing from them, thus making them useless as dividers between the different chambers. The tank currently houses a heater, live rock, and a return pump that is entirely too powerful for my tank (1750 gph). The sump also has a considerable amount of sand all throughout. If the water level gets too low, the return pump starts throwing sand into the display. So here's my idea. I want to drain the sump, remove the sand, and replace my return pump with a 550 gph pump from BMS. Obviously, this is going to change or affect the water level throughout the rest of the sump, which in turn would affect the Reef Octopus skimmer that I'm going to be installing. What's the best way to modify or fix this sump so that it works as intended without issues? Replacing baffles, their placement, etc? The skimmer came with my purchase as well, but hasn't been working due to having to replace the pump for it. So this skimmer will be a new addition for me. Thanks for any help!

Aaron

What pump is it? is it adjustable and if not you can add a gate valve to your return line to slow the flow. 550 gal pump may be a little small. By the time you figure in head pressure you will be lucky to get 200-300 gph out of it. That may be fine for your set up but I found it want enough for me and ended up with 1050gph adjustable pump running at 90% but I have the return split into my refugium with a ball valve throttling the refugium line back slightly. I have a 50gal and 29gal sump also.

Hope this helps.

 

[Aaron Davis]

That does help. Thank you both! The return pump is actually 568 gph and is the one BMS recommended to me. It holds pressure up to 6.5 ft. to the head. My current pump is not adjustable and I weary of throwing in a ball valve and creating too much back pressure by restricting the pump's flow. I plan on hard plumbing this tank, but wanted to figure this out first. If I go through will all this, what would be the best way to handle this? Where my tank is currently, I don't have enough room to pull the sump out from the back. All I have in the front is a little door that the tank most definitely wont fit through. I also don't have another tank to through my fish into. So I planned on draining the sump, pulling the fish out of the display and into a couple buckets, then draining the display as much as possible. I was going to pull out the stand and removed the sump, clean it, fix it, then put everything back. Should take no more than a couple hours at most as I would have everything prepared first. I would then just put all the water and everything back. Does this sound like it would cause issues???? I have a couple anemones and a few pom pom xenias as well.

 

[Homestead_Dad]

Look at the cure time for the glue.

 

[Aaron Davis]

Ok. The silicone I found cures in 5 mins and bonds in 24 hours. Would it be possible to redo the baffles without removing anything???? Replacing them directly in the tank while everything still goes? I'm also confused a little bit with the drain pipes from my over flow. I have 3 1" pipes that run from the overflow to the sump. In the bulkheads, two of the pipes have elbows facing up and one has the elbow facing down. The one with the elbow facing down has a small air hose attached. (I'm assuming as a siphon control?) These pipes run to the sump, but only one goes into the far side of the sump. The other 2 run into the middle chamber where I would be placing some mico algae. This should be changed so that all 3 pipes run into the first chamber of the sump correct? Where the skimmer is? That's the last long question I swear!

 

[Aaron Atkinson]

You have what sounds like a "bean animal" over flow. Good stuff. You can leave the drain locations as is. The primary should go thru the filter. If the other 2 are needed due to blockage or something the noise will alert you to a problem.

I agree with the prior post about pump size, more flow is better. Pump ratings describe flow vs head loss. The rule of thumb is 6-10x your water volume for flow rate. I aimed for that and actually finally put a bigger pump than my original plan to improve the tank's surface flow.