What's a sump? What's a refugium?? What's a skimmer???

[Dani_13563]

Hello! Newbie here! No tank. Just questions.
What I know so far is that a sump is like a DIY filter where you can hide equipment and stick a skimmer (which I also don't know the purpose of). And a refugium is a section in a sump usually with live rock, macro, or some sort of biological filter media that serves as a haven for pods and such? And it also helps use up excess nutrients? Is that correct?

Also, how does one build a sump? What is each chamber for??
For example, if I wanted to start a theoretical 5.5g sump with a fuge for my theoretical 20g tank, how would I do that? Using this kit as an example, what would I use each chamber for?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/275182304588?itmmeta=01J2WZQBD4EHMC2DCCTZ06AGCV&hash=item401224bd4c:g:sYUAAOSwK8thMN4c&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAAwAr0dBy14CihMJMU9PCxqCOfGRu1lhFHxE2%2BNwokKA7UjI%2BJgICNaItP5gmlL6Ee%2BYA9Lik20faNALYFBDYZzV8iFVnVvrmJX7DmwybXOBGQWwQ5O%2F2vLcQpxLx11dD1RsRYK9N05tfZhsakEJf9jKBBnOG6dfce4Qg57WJvmDks6ToW5CaU8sfp3n1fK4mc1EUCRYgXmvpTOH7rOB7fcgKWilWn74LXcyiWa3eKKyVLUZyfdIawETwdyM0HNdU%2B8g%3D%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR9i23Z-XZA

What gets the water into the sump and what puts it back into the tank if it is not drilled?

Sorry for all the questions and thank you for reading! XD

 

[Fish Fan]

Hello! You are asking all the right questions, and you are largely correct!

Unfortunately, I'm not an expert, but others will be along soon to set you on the right path.

Right or wrong, BRS (Bulk Reef Supply) has some very good videos to help beginners. I'd suggest you start here:

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/cont...brs-tv/beginners-guide-to-saltwater-aquariums

Any further questions, feel free to ask, there's a lot of really, really knowledgeable members here.

Good luck!

 

[Reeferbadness]

google search will bring you what you need. Basically: Sump: under tank water basin - usually has a protein skimmer and filtration system (filter socks or reef matt). Water goes from tank to sump and back again and can go through various chambers in the "sump?

Refugium: an area in the sump where you can add some macro algae (ie Chaoto or other) with a grow light - good for nutrient export as well as area for pods etc.

Lots of videos etc available to search away and see / learn. Welcome to reefing

 

[Fish Fan]

• Hello! Newbie here! No tank. Just questions.

That's honestly best! Far too often it's, "I just got this tank and fish and corals, and they are dying!" Much, much better to be patient and understand before you proceed ;-)

Hello! Newbie here! No tank. Just questions.
What I know so far is that a sump is like a DIY filter where you can hide equipment and stick a skimmer (which I also don't know the purpose of). And a refugium is a section in a sump usually with live rock, macro, or some sort of biological filter media that serves as a haven for pods and such? And it also helps use up excess nutrients? Is that correct?

Also, how does one build a sump? What is each chamber for??
For example, if I wanted to start a theoretical 5.5g sump with a fuge for my theoretical 20g tank, how would I do that? Using this kit as an example, what would I use each chamber for?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/275182304588?itmmeta=01J2WZQBD4EHMC2DCCTZ06AGCV&hash=item401224bd4c:g:sYUAAOSwK8thMN4c&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAAwAr0dBy14CihMJMU9PCxqCOfGRu1lhFHxE2%2BNwokKA7UjI%2BJgICNaItP5gmlL6Ee%2BYA9Lik20faNALYFBDYZzV8iFVnVvrmJX7DmwybXOBGQWwQ5O%2F2vLcQpxLx11dD1RsRYK9N05tfZhsakEJf9jKBBnOG6dfce4Qg57WJvmDks6ToW5CaU8sfp3n1fK4mc1EUCRYgXmvpTOH7rOB7fcgKWilWn74LXcyiWa3eKKyVLUZyfdIawETwdyM0HNdU%2B8g%3D%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR9i23Z-XZA

A sump is nothing more than a reservoir of sorts that can hold your filtration equipment. It can and often is a DIY build, which is typically best if you are on a budget. But, there is almost no end to the sumps you can buy commercially, and oh the money you can spend lol!

A sump does sit bellow your main, display tank (DT) and serves a few purposes:

• It does hide your equipment, like heaters, water pumps, and that elusive skimmer (I'll get to that).
• It increases the overall volume of your system, which leads to stability
• It would be more flexible in the future if/when you want to add even more equipment, such as reactors (a fancy name for something that holds chemical filter media like carbon, GFO, etc.).

You can build a sump in so many different ways; I'd recommend going to YouTube and just searching for "DIY Reef Tank Sump Build".

I have been looking for a sump for a new frag tank (coral grow out tank) I am imagining, and I too have been looking for sumps, or sump kits, like you linked above. Budget will come into play here, but out of all the DIY sump kits I've seen recently including FijiCube and Tencor, I think these kits from Marine Biosystems on eBay look like the best value; all you need, with nothing else, and they have great feedback.

A Protein skimmer is just a piece of equipment - a tool, one of many - that helps remove unwanted pollutants from your system. Protein skimmers are very, very popular, but definitely NOT a necessity.

If you have not purchased an aquarium yet, could I please suggest an AIO (All-In-One) system? These are a really great option if you're just getting going in the hobby. An AIO completely eliminates the learning curve for a sump. It's a great way to get started in the hobby, and lots of very successful tanks are run this way.

As always, I hope my comments help, and best of luck no matter what you choose!

 

[Mark Goode]

If you go to a beach on a windy day, you'll likely see clumps of foam that hang around and don't seem to dissolve. These are caused by organic pollutants separating out of the water. This is what a skimmer does, it makes a foam which takes these pollutants out of the water and dumps them into a collection cup.

 

[Shnetts]

The easiest way to think of a sump is as just an extension of your tank that lets you hide all the undesirable filter equipment so you don’t have to look at it in your display tank. As well as give you more water volume witch helps with stability.

Some premade sumps will have chambers designed for specific media. But for the most part you can put in what you see fit. Ex. biomedia like rocks and bio-balls for the good bacteria to live on. A Fuge. And mechanical filtration witch is your filter floss, skimmer, filter roller.

A fuge is like a designated chamber for algae. 99% of the time it’s chaeto. It’s used to uptake the waste produced by fish. Nitrates and phosphate. Instead of pest algae in your main tank using it and growing.

And a skimmer is a way of mechanical filtration that uses bubbles to trap the excess food waste and fish waste and trap it into a cup that you can easily dump out and get out of the water column.

Hope this helps. Also someone who may know more than me please correct me

 

[twentyleagues]

Water gets to your sump via an overflow which in the best case is attached to your tank via a drilled hole through the glass. In the worst case its a hang on back (hob) design. IMO hob overflows are a major point of failure some people have luck with them but more often than not it will break siphon and you will get water on the floor. The water is returned from the sump through a pump back to the display.

There are concerns that need to be addressed with a sump like will the sump be large enough to accomplish the filtration you need to maintain the tank its attached to and will it have enough volume to hold any extra water should the return pump fail or power goes out. In either type of overflow there will be some water that exits the tank once the power to the return pump is off. There needs to be room in the sump for that water so either the level in the sump needs to be that much lower or the total volume of the sump needs to be that much larger.

Skimmer is a foam fractioning device. It basically has a pump that mixes air in the water to create bubbles the bubbles turn into foam because of the "density" of the saltwater, this foam carries waste into a collection cup for disposal.

A fuge is what its called, a refuge for macro algae and beneficial creature to breed and flourish away from the display and predators. The macro algae helps control nutrients in the tank and pods help to eat left over food and some nuisance algaes. Pods are also a food source for quite a few fish so having a place where they are safe to repopulate is a good thing. Any size fuge is useful on a tank but to get the best use out of one it should be at least 20%+ the volume of the tank. A light capable of growing the macro algae you intend on keeping is needed. Fuges are quite useful for multiple reasons those listed above and they can also help to regulate system pH.

There is a lot more info and people could go on all day on the caveats of their use. But those are some basics.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-supreme-guide-to-setting-up-a-saltwater-reef-aquarium.138750/ This has a lot of helpful information in it!

 

[Dani_13563]

google search will bring you what you need. Basically: Sump: under tank water basin - usually has a protein skimmer and filtration system (filter socks or reef matt). Water goes from tank to sump and back again and can go through various chambers in the "sump?

Refugium: an area in the sump where you can add some macro algae (ie Chaoto or other) with a grow light - good for nutrient export as well as area for pods etc.

Lots of videos etc available to search away and see / learn. Welcome to reefing

Thank you! I found that google searches and diagrams only further confused me XD. And I would use Youtube, but I'm kinda, maybe, possibly grounded from my phone right now . From guess what? "Doing too much fish research." Literally. My mother says I am obsessed, and that it's not healthy.

Anyways, I'm just using my laptop instead .

 

[GlassMunky]

Hello! Newbie here! No tank. Just questions.
What I know so far is that a sump is like a DIY filter where you can hide equipment and stick a skimmer (which I also don't know the purpose of). And a refugium is a section in a sump usually with live rock, macro, or some sort of biological filter media that serves as a haven for pods and such? And it also helps use up excess nutrients? Is that correct?

Also, how does one build a sump? What is each chamber for??
For example, if I wanted to start a theoretical 5.5g sump with a fuge for my theoretical 20g tank, how would I do that? Using this kit as an example, what would I use each chamber for?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/275182304588?itmmeta=01J2WZQBD4EHMC2DCCTZ06AGCV&hash=item401224bd4c:g:sYUAAOSwK8thMN4c&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAAwAr0dBy14CihMJMU9PCxqCOfGRu1lhFHxE2%2BNwokKA7UjI%2BJgICNaItP5gmlL6Ee%2BYA9Lik20faNALYFBDYZzV8iFVnVvrmJX7DmwybXOBGQWwQ5O%2F2vLcQpxLx11dD1RsRYK9N05tfZhsakEJf9jKBBnOG6dfce4Qg57WJvmDks6ToW5CaU8sfp3n1fK4mc1EUCRYgXmvpTOH7rOB7fcgKWilWn74LXcyiWa3eKKyVLUZyfdIawETwdyM0HNdU%2B8g%3D%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR9i23Z-XZA

What gets the water into the sump and what puts it back into the tank if it is not drilled?

Sorry for all the questions and thank you for reading! XD

you will need to either drill the tank and install an overflow box, or get a hang on back overflow. both will allow the water to "overflow" and then drain into the tank via pvc or vinyl tubing.
You would then have a "return pump" which is a submersible pump thats used to pump the water from the sump back to the main tank.
The overflow drains and the return pump need to be sized correctly to each other because they work together. if the pump is too strong the overflow drains wont be able to handle the flow and you end up with the tank overflowing onto your floor or the pump will run dry from pulling all the water out the sump too fast.

 

[Reeferbadness]

Thank you! I found that google searches and diagrams only further confused me XD. And I would use Youtube, but I'm kinda, maybe, possibly grounded from my phone right now . From guess what? "Doing too much fish research." Literally. My mother says I am obsessed, and that it's not healthy.

Anyways, I'm just using my laptop instead .

tell her it's an engineering project (which it is)

 

[-XENOMORPH-]

If young and limited budget, you can go AIO or Dt and sump. Both are great. I've had both. Reading a lot is what I did as well, but my wife knows I am OCD and didn't tell me I was nuts. Please enjoy your journey and keep going slow. It's a marathon not a sprint.

 

[Dani_13563]

If young and limited budget, you can go AIO or Dt and sump. Both are great. I've had both. Reading a lot is what I did as well, but my wife knows I am OCD and didn't tell me I was nuts. Please enjoy your journey and keep going slow. It's a marathon not a sprint.

Thank you! I plan on going as slow as possible! I don't want to make too many drastic mistakes when I have a large arsenal of information available to me right here.
I have a habit of obsessing over many things, but my mom said i'm too messy to be OCD.

Thanks for the advice!