This is making me crazy! What is a sump?

[jackiomy]

I know I should know this but I have no idea what a sump is or what it is for. Can someone explain it to me in easy terms?

 

[Notophthalmus]

A sump is basically a large open filter. The usual setup is this: you have a container of water that sits under your tank; your tank drains to the sump via a drain or overflow, goes through various filter media, then is returned to your tank by a pump. Sumps increase the effective water volume of your tank much moreso than other filter types and provide more room for filtration media. But they are more difficult to install and take up a lot of room.

 

[jackiomy]

Hmm sounds messy. Is this mainly for larger tanks?

 

[msouth468]

larger tanks, mostly on saltwater aquariums.

 

[Notophthalmus]

I've never seen a sump on anything smaller than a 55. Like Msouth said, they are more common on SW tanks where the extra filtration and dilution capacity is really important. But they certainly can be used on FW tanks as well.

 

[owl]

i built a diy overflow/sump with a 2g tank as sump for my 20g FW tank , but the sump crashed , i donno why ... may be cuz of the pressure and pump vibration ...