Sump Overflow Direct or Indirect?

[MantisShrimpMan]

Included diagram should hopefully give a good sense of what I’m asking. Do people prefer sumps that dump water directly to the mechanical filtration or should they have some sort of spillover “staging area”? I’m assuming the spillover staging area might keep things a little quieter, right? Also, since I want to run a Reef Factory Smart Roller (only reason I drew filter socks were because they’re more intuitive) and that only has one port in, a staging area would allow a bunch of drains to be merged into one, right?

I’m new to sumps (currently an AIO guy) but given that my planned build is a weird size, I’d like to DIY a sump from scratch for it, and Knowing details like this makes a big difference.

 

[YOYOYOReefer]

I would say direct is better as the bottom of your indirect picture will become a detritus settling area. Unless you clean it regularly. I’m not a roller fan. Yet. I have been happy with using reef diapers vs socks .

 

[KrisReef]

I agree with YoYo, but if a fish goes into the overflow it's gonna have a better chance of living in the sump with a #2 option?

I like your drawings for discussion by the way, very nice!

Also, that direct plunge in 1 is going to force more small particles thru the filter media, but I think it is typical for rollermat set ups? Its a mystery, lets see what the board comes up with?

 

[MantisShrimpMan]

I would say direct is better as the bottom of your indirect picture will become a detritus settling area. Unless you clean it regularly. I’m not a roller fan. Yet. I have been happy with using reef diapers vs socks .

I have no clue what a reef diaper is. Explanation/pictures?

The thing I didn’t include in this picture is that I’d imagine you’d want the pipe to reach at least halfway down that spillover chamber to help keep detritus suspended. Was just hard to include that and still have room for the arrow in the chamber lol.

Id imagine the closer that drain pipe gets to the bottom of the bin, the more it’s pushing detritus to be suspended. Sorta like how people keep lower powerheads in bare bottom tanks?

I’ve seen manufacturers do it both ways in practice. Just look at these two different sumps, both from Trigger Systems!

With the red one being an example of direct and the green one being an example of indirect (notice how it shows those drainpipes going all the way down like I mentioned)

For the record, this was the previous thread that inspired me to post this current thread:

Direct into filter sock or spillover?

Do you prefer the return line to go directly into a filtersock or into a seperate compartment next to the socks that spills over into the filter socks? To me there is somthing satisfying about the return lines going directly into the sock. In my mind i feel like it traps more stuff even though...

www.reef2reef.com

I didn’t really feel the prior thread established a firm answer on the matter, but it did appear to be the case that they sided toward the indirect approach slightly more?

 

[MantisShrimpMan]

I like your drawings for discussion by the way, very nice!

Thanks Kris! Means a lot. I find it frustrating when Im reading up on older posts and everyone’s discussing something but theres no visual for it and all those accounts are now years inactive so there’s nobody to even clarify it with… might as well lay out a good foundation, makes the discussion more productive and lays out a better framework for future lurkers too

 

[MantisShrimpMan]

I agree with YoYo, but if a fish goes into the overflow it's gonna have a better chance of living in the sump with a #2 option?

I had an onyx percula jump over my AIO baffle wall (which is super impressive considering theres also a hood so it was only like a ½” gap) and proceed to dry out on top of my filter sponge, so this is a great point about mechanical filtration survivability. With that said, I’d imagine that to some degree, if a fish makes it into the external overflow box and then down a stretch of siphon-flow vertical tubing, odds are its going to get the crud beaten out of it either way…

Also, that direct plunge in 1 is going to force more small particles thru the filter media, but I think it is typical for rollermat set ups? Its a mystery, lets see what the board comes up with?

Yeah I was thinking the less turbulent nature of the indirect flow could actually assist the mechanical filtration as opposed to violenty flushing particles through a sock...

The bigger advantage I’m gauging at is like, let’s just say you only have ONE filter sock, or in my planned case, a filter roller with only 1 input Pipe. Running a herbie, or especially a bean animal, in the direct method would lead to some of the water going around the mechanical filtration and bringing detritus and other crap down with it. I say Bean animal especially because the open secondary channel will be bringing down flow even in non emergency settings. Whereas the spillover format gives a section for all drains to merge up and put their flow through the singular input of the mechanical filtration. Thoughts, @BeanAnimal ?

Also, some people might argue ”oh its just the emergency drain, it wouldn‘t matter if it bypassed the mechanical filtration” but I disagree on the premise that I feel id be most likely to trip my emergency drain amidst activities like spontaneous tank cleaning (where my forearm would be rapidly displacing water) and during moments like that cleaning example is when theres the most detritus and other crud in the water column anyways that you’d specifically WANT Mechanical filtration to catch

 

[Wave Whisperer]

What type of overflow are you planning? I assume it's a Bean Animal (3 pipes) setup? Hence your questions on where the additional pipes shall go right?

If you are planning on using a fleece roller right off the bat, IMO you can forego the first chamber all together. If you noticed, most auto rollers (basically, just Red Sea ReefMat) has an option of a sump mod kit whereby they allow you to modify your sump to cut off the spillover baffles. This is to allow you to fit the rollers in your sump. The function of spillovers are basically just to reduce noise from the drainpipes.

I run a filter roller myself but its a Bubble Magus, same concept. Although I'm running Durso (2 pipes) overflow. My main drain pipe is hard plumbed to the roller and the emergency just drains down straight in my return chamber, although its raised above the water level so I will know if I encounter trouble in the main drain.

Your main drainpipe should take up the majority of the flow into the roller (thus, noise is significantly reduced) the 2nd one just a trickle, and your 3rd emergency shall remain a dry line. All these can be drain straight into your sump. However, having the dry line slightly raised above your sump level is a good practice as you will be able to hear if you encouunter any issues with your overflow.

TLDR: If you are planning a filter roller from the start, you can forego the spillovers.

 

[MantisShrimpMan]

What type of overflow are you planning? I assume it's a Bean Animal (3 pipes) setup? Hence your questions on where the additional pipes shall go right?

If you are planning on using a fleece roller right off the bat, IMO you can forego the first chamber all together. If you noticed, most auto rollers (basically, just Red Sea ReefMat) has an option of a sump mod kit whereby they allow you to modify your sump to cut off the spillover baffles. This is to allow you to fit the rollers in your sump. The function of spillovers are basically just to reduce noise from the drainpipes.

I run a filter roller myself but its a Bubble Magus, same concept. Although I'm running Durso (2 pipes) overflow. My main drain pipe is hard plumbed to the roller and the emergency just drains down straight in my return chamber, although its raised above the water level so I will know if I encounter trouble in the main drain.

Your main drainpipe should take up the majority of the flow into the roller (thus, noise is significantly reduced) the 2nd one just a trickle, and your 3rd emergency shall remain a dry line. All these can be drain straight into your sump. However, having the dry line slightly raised above your sump level is a good practice as you will be able to hear if you encouunter any issues with your overflow.

TLDR: If you are planning a filter roller from the start, you can forego the spillovers.

I thought two pipes was Herbie not durso? Am I missing something?

My point being even the just a trickle, wouldn’t you want it to run into your filter roller?

The bubble magus ones can have two pipes in if I’m not mistaken? The reef factories on only have one though.

 

[Wave Whisperer]

I thought two pipes was Herbie not durso? Am I missing something?

My bad. Its Herbie. Dursos are standalones.

My point being even the just a trickle, wouldn’t you want it to run into your filter roller?

IMO it doesn't really make much of a difference. The main drain is taking up most of the siphon anyway. One thing to note that filter rollers are very effective filtration. Some of us here even run them without skimmers or bypasses just to not let nutrients bottom out. Then again, depending on each individual system and bioload. For me, I practice heavy in and heavy out. I run both skimmer and rollers.

The bubble magus ones can have two pipes in if I’m not mistaken? The reef factories on only have one though.

I own the Large. From factory it comes with a single inlet. However you do have the option to run 2 inlets with some simple DIY and elbow grease. I didn't bother with this. As my overflow is back center, I just let my emergency drain straight into my return chamber which is directly beneath.

Don't get me wrong, I do like your concept and understand where you are coming from. however I need to understand how are you planning to divert the water from the spillover into the roller input pipe?

 

[Reefkeepers Archive]

Included diagram should hopefully give a good sense of what I’m asking. Do people prefer sumps that dump water directly to the mechanical filtration or should they have some sort of spillover “staging area”? I’m assuming the spillover staging area might keep things a little quieter, right? Also, since I want to run a Reef Factory Smart Roller (only reason I drew filter socks were because they’re more intuitive) and that only has one port in, a staging area would allow a bunch of drains to be merged into one, right?

I’m new to sumps (currently an AIO guy) but given that my planned build is a weird size, I’d like to DIY a sump from scratch for it, and Knowing details like this makes a big difference.

I have the same type of sump in my 120 gallon. Eshopps alpha fuge sump had that built-in. Though I wouldn't be the best person to ask about plumbing as I only know the basics

 

[twentyleagues]

Having had sumps in both designs I prefer the spill over design. Never had too much of an issue with detritus in the spill over. This design is much more versatile for adding more drains to an existing sump. In case of a fish making it over the overflow can also be good to give it a chance at making it alive. The drain of the syphon should always be submerged, help sound and helps to put back pressure on it to help tuning. I am also wondering how you will direct the flow to the roller mat though.

 

[BeanAnimal]

My point being even the just a trickle, wouldn’t you want it to run into your filter roller?

You are overthinking this. There is no need to direct 100% of the water through the mechanical filter.

To that end, I can think of 100 reasons to not put 100% of the water through the mechanical filter and really no reason to do so. Partly due to inconvenience and partly due to the fact that you don't want to remove all of the macro fauna from the system.

 

[MantisShrimpMan]

You are overthinking this. There is no need to direct 100% of the water through the mechanical filter.

To that end, I can think of 100 reasons to not put 100% of the water through the mechanical filter and really no reason to do so. Partly due to inconvenience and partly due to the fact that you don't want to remove all of the macro fauna from the system.

I’d love to hear some of the other reasons against running all drains through mechanical filtration

Also, on the topic of macro fauna (which I’m assuming we can specify to be copepods, amphipods, etc) sure, a filter roller prevents reasonable exchange into the sump. But most sumps appear to use a skimmer first refugium second methodology and don’t protein skimmers also kill freeswimming pods? My point being I’d assume a pod that went along for the ride down the overflow will probably not fair well regardless of whether one overflow standpipe bypassed the mechanical filtration or not? And on that note, assuming I manually seed the refugium with pods at the beginning, wouldn’t it be acceptable (ideal even?) to have pods going from fuge to DT but not DT to fuge?

In my current tank, an older AIO, the lower weir holes (along these lines: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/why-some-all-in-one-aquarium-have-******-on-the-bottom.687919/) along with a less than perfect silicone glass to acrylic connection has allowed sand and other crud to settle back into the AIO baffles in a way I can’t realistically reach to clean out.

@BeanAnimal I was watching this video from ReefBuilders (RIP Jake) about automatic filter rollers:

and something that really stood out to me is how by reducing detritus to the sump you’re reducing the potential for particulate matter to impact the function of your sump equipment- reason #5 in this video, which he speaks to starting at about 9 minutes into the video.

I have a background in boating, and the bays in NY where I boat the most are full of sandbars and substrate deposits that have seriously reduced the overall depth of the channels. I have a ton of firsthand experience with how much a bit of sand can impact motor function, since having sand enter the water intake of an outboard motor in those cases of running too shallow can seriously wreck havoc on the impeller and other systems like temperature regulation. I’d imagine theres a lot of shared potential there for reef equipment.

So if I can cut down on the particulate debris being forced through my pumps wouldn‘t that be a good reason to run all drains through mechanical filtration?

 

[BeanAnimal]

I’d love to hear some of the other reasons against running all drains through mechanical filtration

Off the top of my head - Removal of beneficial organisms, rapid depletion of filtration media to no major benefit.
Higher propensity for clogs, floods, etc. and a single point of failure. Plumbing complications and complexity, etc.

But most sumps appear to use a skimmer first refugium second methodology and don’t protein skimmers also kill freeswimming pods?

Even if 100% of the system water is run directly into a skimmer, not 100% of the fauna (or anything else) is removed.

So if I can cut down on the particulate debris being forced through my pumps wouldn‘t that be a good reason to run all drains through mechanical filtration?

This is not an all or nothing thing and moreover, even you do directly process 100% of the water through mechanical filtration, you will still have detritus throughout the system. Most people who reef rollers (or socks) realize very quickly that they fill up with pounds of crap, but the system still accumulates as much crap (pun no pun) as it did without the mechanical filtration.

 

[exnisstech]

I have no clue what a reef diaper is. Explanation/pictures

I've been running them for about a year in my 125g basement sump. Water dumps strait into them. Two other tanks have water draining into a chamber then overflowing into the sock on one and reefmat on the second. The tank with the diapers getting dumped in has the highest nutrient levels but the clearest water of the 3. I have a hunch it more the maturity of the tank vs different filtration tho

Home - Reef Diaper

Never wash another nasty filter sock again! Filter socks are arguably the worst part of aquarium maintenance and are the equivalent

reefdiaper.com

 

[MantisShrimpMan]

Having had sumps in both designs I prefer the spill over design.

I am also wondering how you will direct the flow to the roller mat though.

Glad you asked since I’d love to get other peoples thoughts on that component of this situation!

So I had been thinking that there’d be a small horizontal overhang to allow me to mount a bulkhead vertically that would lead into the 90 degree elbow. Like this:

Forgive the poor depiction of a bulkhead, wasn’t sure how best to draw it but hopefully the idea makes sense. I’d also consider just siliconing the pipe in directly, considering the bulkhead would have proud lips unless I found a way to recess it into that horizontal panel.

The other thing I realized was that that in order to get this out for roll replacement and general maintanance, I have to plan on the plumbing in a way that can allow a link to pop apart. Usually you’d use a union for that kinda task, but since this is already in the sump where a minor leak from one chamber to another doesn’t appear to have any massively negative impact potential, I’d assume just a tight slip fitting would be enough?

So in evaulating that, it appears it would be much easier to be able to pop the filter roller out of the sump via a horizontal link vs a vertical link, shown in this diagram in that the green motion would be preferable to the red one.

The filter roller comes with a 90 degree elbow, but if you look at ReefDork’ s video on the matter you’ll see he 3D printed himself a straight version of the part:

So, if I could get one of those, I could hook it up to disassemble like this:

Alternatively though, I could perhaps mount the bulkhead on the vertical plane, sort of like how you’d expect for using an external return pump? This would avoid the overhang, and could also perhaps allow me to use the provided 90 degree bend if done a certain way?

 

[MantisShrimpMan]

Sorry for the massive rant! That was me laying out my ENTIRE thought process on how to plumb this. I’d love to know other people’s opinions on the feasibility? As of now, assuming I go with the spillage route, that last image with the “preserves original 90 bend using a second elbow” is probably the one Im most partial to?

 

[MantisShrimpMan]

Off the top of my head - Removal of beneficial organisms, rapid depletion of filtration media to no major benefit.
Higher propensity for clogs, floods, etc. and a single point of failure. Plumbing complications and complexity, etc.


Even if 100% of the system water is run directly into a skimmer, not 100% of the fauna (or anything else) is removed.


This is not an all or nothing thing and moreover, even you do directly process 100% of the water through mechanical filtration, you will still have detritus throughout the system. Most people who reef rollers (or socks) realize very quickly that they fill up with pounds of crap, but the system still accumulates as much crap (pun no pun) as it did without the mechanical filtration.

Also, I need to give this some serious thought, thank you for the wise words @BeanAnimal . I have a paper due today I gotta write but after that Im going to return to this and see if using your wisdom it makes more sense to go about this completely differently

 

[MantisShrimpMan]

I've been running them for about a year in my 125g basement sump. Water dumps strait into them. Two other tanks have water draining into a chamber then overflowing into the sock on one and reefmat on the second. The tank with the diapers getting dumped in has the highest nutrient levels but the clearest water of the 3. I have a hunch it more the maturity of the tank vs different filtration tho

Home - Reef Diaper

Never wash another nasty filter sock again! Filter socks are arguably the worst part of aquarium maintenance and are the equivalent

reefdiaper.com

Very cool. Like disposable filter socks but same form factor. Smart. If I were dealing with a pre established sump I’d probably elect for something like that in lieu of having to cut out baffles for a filter roller. But since I’m starting from square 1 anyways, might as well do the roller, right?

I’d assume the roller mat is less work on the basis that it seems easier to incorporate a new one than have to align the disposable sock into the collar, AND I’d assume the socks are a once a week swap whereas the rollers are a once a month swap?

 

[exnisstech]

I’d assume the roller mat is less work on the basis that it seems easier to incorporate a new one than have to align the disposable sock into the collar, AND I’d assume the socks are a once a week swap whereas the rollers are a once a month swap?

The sump with the diapers is total DIY with no way to mount a roller so I'm happy with the diapers vs socks. I have the roller mat on my reefer 300 so it was plug N play. My only regret about the roller is not getting it sooner.