32 gallon Biocube with custom sump

Garrett Keller · Jun 29, 2019

I am a bit late on the build thread seeing I'm 2 1/2 years late. This is my first reef tank and I started with a standard Biocube (32 gallon AIO). The more research I did, I found that everyone recommended more water volume for stability. I decided to try making my own custom sump to fit in my stand. It added an extra 10 gallons to my total volume. It also gave me a place for a bigger skimmer and the option to grow macro algae. Here's what I have accomplished with the help of #Reef2reef

hdsoftail1065 · Jun 29, 2019

It looks great! Let's see some pics of your sump setup. It might give me some ideas for ours.

reeferJMX · Aug 20, 2019

It looks great.

Garrett Keller said:
I am a bit late on the build thread seeing I'm 2 1/2 years late. This is my first reef tank and I started with a standard Biocube (32 gallon AIO). The more research I did, I found that everyone recommended more water volume for stability. I decided to try making my own custom sump to fit in my stand. It added an extra 10 gallons to my total volume. It also gave me a place for a bigger skimmer and the option to grow macro algae. Here's what I have accomplished with the help of #Reef2reef

Hello, I'm new to this forum. I'm interested on the total cost to make this happen? I've only had my tank for less than a year, and even with weekly 5 gallons water changes, I'd like to get my water parameters more stable by adding a sump, and a protein skimmer. I have the stock Coralife stand to use.

Garrett Keller · Mar 20, 2020

I have been extremely busy lately and haven't had much time to spend here on Reef2Reef. I know there are a lot of people curious how I was able to add a sump without drilling my tank. One thing I didn't want to do was to drill holes in a tank that I may get rid of in the near future. I also wanted to keep my lid intact to cut down on evaporation because I heat with wood pellets and the air is extremely dry. So, this weekend I am going to do a point and shoot update on my setup. I will post it here on my build thread and also on my YouTube channel = Garrett Keller.

Garrett Keller · Mar 20, 2020

reeferJMX said:
It looks great.

Hello, I'm new to this forum. I'm interested on the total cost to make this happen? I've only had my tank for less than a year, and even with weekly 5 gallons water changes, I'd like to get my water parameters more stable by adding a sump, and a protein skimmer. I have the stock Coralife stand to use.

I have been AFK for awhile and apologize I didn't see your message earlier. Ill touch on your question in my update video. Thanks.