Building a sump

[Luca Brazzi]

Ok... now that I have tried my hand at working with Acrylic by building a small (2 gallon) tank, Im ready to start designing and building a sump. The basic plan is to build a sump that is similar to a Tidepool with the pull out trays in the bio tower. Instead of a biowheel like the Tidepool, Im planning on using 3 gallons of bioballs.

I want to have 4 trays in the bio tower.

1) Prefilter / drip tray
2) ?
3) ?
4) Bio Balls

This will give me the ability to place whatever I want in the 2 middle trays (Crushed coral, Carbon, etc).

Im planning on building the biotower as a stand alone unit, then building the sump itself, and placing the bio tower in it.


The way I see it, 1 gallon of bio balls came in a 9" x 5" x 6" box. That's 270 cubic inches... Times 3 thats 810 cubic inches for bio balls.

I want to have 5 inches of water under the bioballs. This will be the water level in the sump (should be enough to cover the submersible return pump).

Now...

The question is, whats the best way to construct the trays? I know the top one needs to be a drip plate 2 inches deep acrylic tray with holes drilled in it. What about the other trays? Should each one be another drip plate style or should I use egg crate for these?

[Decz]

Here's a thread to another forum on the infamous "sump"

http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/html/Forum8/HTML/000207.html

Slipknotten always comes to the rescue with this topic.. try posting for him if you don't find an answer elsewhere...

good luck! :)

[wiEngineer]

****, the great sump thread is gone *sniff*.

Anyone got a copy of it somewhere?

[Decz]

it still works for me... weird?!

oh, maybe i'm viewing it in my cache... sheesh.

with permission, i'll see if i can copy it and post it online... i'll get back in here and render the verdict.

:)

[wiEngineer]

Thanks. That was a great thread. It should be reposted here and nailed into place.

[slipknottin]

i downloaded the thread to my HD...

ill find a way to host it online once the other forum is shut down.

the link still works BTW... the other software hasent been shut off yet.

[wiEngineer]

Weird, I get the following:

Not Found
The requested URL /forums/html/Forum8/HTML/000207.html was not found on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

---

As long as we can get it back in the end :-)

[slipknottin]

Dale (reefscape) says he is going to transfer all the archived threads over to the new archives on the new software.

[Decz]

it has been done, anyone that wants to check out the sump thread can go to the archives (bottom of the main forum page), and go into marine FIY!

YAY!

[Luca Brazzi]

The sump thread from the old board contains some useful information but... its mainly about overflows and plumbing rather than the actual issues one is confronted with when building a DIY sump and biotower.

My question is more geared towards building the actual filter and sump than overflows etc. If anyone has information regarding this, Id greatly appreciate it (See the first post in this thread).

[RTR]

A gallon is ~230 cubic inches, but a bit of margin is good for packing variation.

[slipknottin]

i put a new thread in the FW DIY archives that might help.

[Luca Brazzi]

Yes.. that does help somewhat.

However, I have a question about its design. When the water flows over the drip plate and into the second chamber it will flow over the bioballs, though the eggcrate and into the 3rd chamber, the water level in the second and 3rd chambers will be equal so wont your bioballs in the second chamber be at least partially submersed? Arent the bioballs supposed to be suspended OVER the water level and not submersed?

Maybe its just that the drawing isnt to scale?

What will be the dimensions of the sump/chambers?

[slipknottin]

why would the water level be equal in both the second and third chambers?

bioballs function either way, submersed or out of water. you will be able to support more bacteria having them out of water, but with 5 gallons of bioballs you can support an extremely large bacteria population, even if they are mostly submerged.

[Luca Brazzi]

From the looks of the drawing, the water flows over the 1st baffle, through the bioballs, and then under the second baffle(between the 2nd and 3rd chambers), then over the heaters. So wouldnt the water level rise to equal heights in these two chambers?

The sumps Ive looked at in the flesh all had the bio media completely out of the water (or at least the water level line marked on the side of the sump was below the bottom of the media bioballs/biowheel)

Its good to know however that the bioballs will support at least some bacteria even if partially submerged. This may allow me to lower the height of my bio tower a bit to reduce the height of the stand its going into.

[slipknottin]

well the biggest thing is having enough water to cover the pump...

the problem is how much variance there is.

meaning if you fill up the sump so the water is just over the pump, then you turn the pump on, the water level is going to drop and the pump will be sucking air.

likewise, if you dont put in enough water, within a couple days enough water will evaporation and leave the water level in the sump very low.

[SoulkeepeR]

BTW slip, here is how the sump turned out.

http://community.webshots.com/album/57242230xTlYVr

[Luca Brazzi]

Hmmm, thats got me thinking... Maybe what I can do is partially submerse the bioballs and then use a few bubblewands and an air pump to bubble air up through the bottom of the balls. This way I can reduce the overall height of the bio tower, and raise the water level in the sump to whatever I want.

[wiEngineer]

Dunno if your idea has validitiy (sounds good in theory, but someone can answer better), but there are also those "bubble plates" which would disperse bubbles over more area on the tank bottom.

[Luca Brazzi]

Ok, here's the latest.

I got home early enough today to do a little work on the sump. I built two more trays for the bio tower. So now I have 3 trays total. 2 shallow ones (2.5" deep) and one deep one 5.5" deep, all have inside dim of 12" x 12". The deep one should hold 3 gallons of bio balls. The top tray has a drip plate for a bottom, and this is where the mechanical filter cloth will go. The second tray also has a drip plate for a bottom and who knows what will go here... for now... nothing, but if I want to use it for something in the future, its there.

Ive decided to stick with just 2 trays above the bioballs, so the next part of this is to build the biotower itself.

This should be pretty simple, just a three sided box with a top (a 1" bulkhead fitting will be in the top if I can ever get one from Big Als!). Does anyone know a way I can build a bulkhead without waiting 2 - 3 weeks for one from Big Al (and please dont point me to that VatoElvis site)? Inside of the 3 sided box Ill have to glue some rails for the trays to slide onto.

The biggest question I still have is: What height should the bottom of the bioballs be from the bottom of the sump? If I can partially submerge the bioballs (and maybe bubble air through them to increase the bacteria colony) Then I can reduce the overall height of the biotower and stand. If I need to make sure that all biomedia is OVER the waterline then the height of the biotower and stand increases. The way Im thinking now, the best way to ensure a constant bacteria population is to have the bioballs OVER the water. If the biomedia is partially sumberged, the waterline will rise and fall depending upon the dynamics of the system, and cause the bacteria population to fluctuate.

Am I over thinking this?

[Luca Brazzi]

Ok... tonight I built the biotower itself. Now I have basically what looks like an Acrylic file cabinet with 3 drawers, 2 - 3" and 1 5.5". All are 12x12. I drilled a 1 3/4" hole in the top of the tower. This is where the 1" bulkhead fitting will go once I get it. Currently the whole thing is 24" tall, but that will most likely change (Ill just chop off a few inches from the bottom of the tower).

Next thing is to build the sump itself. This will be just an acrylic tank that is wide enough to accomodate the biotower. All I need to do is figure out the height and length. Since it needs to go in a stand made for a 75G tank, Im thinking that it should be less that 3 feet long to leave some space in the stand for other stuff.

[Luca Brazzi]

Ok the biotower and 3 trays are currently in the bathtub (see my other Cycling my bathtub thread). The top 2 3" trays both have drip plates for bottoms, the bottom 5.5" tray with the bioballs has an eggcrate bottom. Right now Im testing things out using a Mag Drive 500 pump to pump water from the tub into a hole in the top of the tower. When I get my 1" bulkhead fittings one of these will go into the hole in the tower. I think I may need to go with a larger pump though. The tower seems to easily be able to handle the flow from the pump. However I dont think the pump puts out enough flow to saturate all of biomedia evenly. In otherwords the drip trays arent dripping everywhere nice and evenly this is partially due to the fact that the bathtub is sloped so the biotower isnt level (I shimmed it on one side with some acrylic scrap to compensate for this), but even with the tower leveled Id be more comfortable if there was a greater flow of water over all of the balls. Maybe I should have built a narrower and higher tower (the inside dimensions of the trays are 12"x12") This would have made for less dispersion of the flow over the drip trays. But I figured that a smaller length and width would make it necessary to have a greater height to hold the same volume of bioballs (3 gallons). If I go with a bigger pump though I think the water will disperse more evenly in that it would "fill" the drip trays more. If I could pump enough volume to keep about 1/4" of water in the trays... Im Golden.

I had to switch back to my 10" 32 Tooth sawblade for cutting the Acrylic. I just couldnt get a nice straight/smooth edge with the 7" 150 tooth, even though it says its made for cutting plastic.

The last 2 decisions I need to make are:

1) How high should the biotower be? I have about 10" of acrylic underneath the bioballs. Some of this has to go. How much will determine what water level I can maintain in the sump without submerging the biomedia (although from what I hear, submerging the bio media isnt a complete disaster)

2) How long to make the sump itself. Since this is all going into a 2x4 framed stand under a 4 foot long tank...

The sump will be just wide enough to accomodate the biotower so I dont need to worry about that.

The sump height will be somewhere less than the height of the biotower, also not real important.

[Luca Brazzi]

I completed the sump today. I went with 14" wide (outside dimensions) 12" high, and 30" long for the sump tank. The biotower is still being tested in my bathtub. All I need to complete this is the 1" bulkhead fittings. Ill post a pic when I get everthing together. Where's a good place on the net to post pics?

[Luca Brazzi]

I havent gotten the bulkhead fittings yet but the sump/biotower is in my tub and running great. Its very quiet! Just a teeny bit of trickling (this will get even more quiet once I have mechanical filter media in the trays (right now I only have the bio balls in there). The water level in the sump is about 6" this is just under the bioballs and more than enough to cover the mag drive return pump. At 6" this is half the height of the sump which would give me 10 gallons of space for an accidental overflow of the tank.

[Luca Brazzi]

To sum this thread up, the sump/biotower is in the stand and working fine. Right now there is only a slight trickling sound coming from it due to the fact that the second drip tray in the biotower is currently empty. I have a 100 micron filter cloth in the top drip tray and soon I will add a 50 micron filter into the second tray, this will quiet down the noise. Also, the second tray can be used to hold chem filter, or crushed coral to raise the pH since I decided to go with black beauty sand for a substrate. All in all Im very pleased with the outcome. The sump does have a bit of a bow in it but the uprights in the stand keep it from bowing out further. I cant add a crossbrace because then I wouldnt be able to slide the trays out without removing the biotower. The bioball section currently has 2 gallons of balls in it, but from the looks of it I could possibly add 2 more gallons if I wanted. I did a power outage test and with the sump half full, there is more than enough room left over to hold any backflow from the tank.

[Luca Brazzi]

One other thing, I decided to switch things around a bit. Instead of putting the 100 micron filter cloth in the top tray, I put a 12" x 12" sponge filter in there to catch the large stuff, then I put the 100 micron in the second tray. Since Im planning on keeping African Cichlids, Ill probably also put some crushed coral in the second tray on top of the filter cloth. I had to switch because the 100 micron cloth was getting clogged up faster than you can say Englebert Humperdink just filtering out the dust from the new substrate.

Ive been fishless cycling for about a week (I got some gravel from an lfs) and currently Im at .1ppm Nitrites.