Considering taking the dive...

[Bob Escher]

Hmm they say 10 times a hour the size of your tank. So being a 90 gallon that would mean 900 gallons a hour. But because you have to take in height factors any bends and turns and any reductions. I personally like these Waveline DC6000 Apex ready DC pump 1585 GPH from Bulk Reef supply. It's controllable and doing good for me but you will need that GPH to be on the safe side.
Read up on cured rock/ live rock

 

[mikecfry]

The 10x per hour is total circulation though right? I don't think there is any way I'd get that through the sump. Should I have a second drain to help with flow since the 1 bulkhead will only do around 600gph. I was also planning on using a couple powerheads to help with any dead spots.

 

[Bob Escher]

Yes but not many of us can get it. The issues that you have the pump power to do it sure you could get a bigger bulkhead and get it done. With my sump and tank it equals about 55 gals I get maybe 440 at the most when I sure be getting 550 but that is because of my overflow doesn't do it and I really have no way to get it. But I'm close and I think if you can get anything over 6 times ( my personal opinion) your good

 

[mikecfry]

OK great. I'm hoping to get to about 600gph but will definitely get a pump rated much higher. Looking at the Eheim 5000.

Just nailing down design for the sump now - sock or no sock, and chamber sizes. I've decided to do everything with schedule 80 PVC so planning out where to include valves etc to help with water changes. Also putting a 10g QT next to it and putting a valve to easily refill that from the tank.

 

[mikecfry]

Well I've been busy... drilled the tank which was as easy as could be. Glad I went for it! I built a sump from an old 20L I had with some acrylic and GE Silicone 1. I also got ano Eheim compact+ 5000 pump and 2 new Eheim 125W heaters since my old ones were being inconsistent. We setup the tank Saturday and added live sand and rock on Sunday. We went with about 55 lbs live rock and another 35 lbs coral rock to help build up. I plumbed the sump and got it running, still noisy but I'll work on fine tuning. Its all PVC with the exception of a hose extension off the main drain i added for water changes and the pump output which is 1" hose that connects into 1" PVC. I also have 2 powerheads turning around about 1500 gph.

So I ran my first tests tonight (aside from salinity which I've been checking daily since Saturday) and here are the results:

Salinity: 1.026
Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 15 ppm
Ph: 7.9

I'm a bit surprised by the results. I can't imagine the tank has cycled, and I'm not sure what has the Nitrates so high. Any suggestions? I know live rock helps and all, but there's no way in 4 days. Here's a picture of the setup.

 

[mikecfry]

I'm going to do another test when I get home from work today to see where everything is at, but guess I'll start looking into lighting options to help with algae growth.

 

[mikecfry]

Quick update: parameters have held steady where they were last week. I added 2 more pieces of fully cured live rock that had coraline present to help seed that bringing the rock total to around 120 lbs. I added a cheaper LED light (Current USA Orbit Marine) and seeing lots of algae growth.

I have noticed a few tubes growing, as well as this white "growth" that has slowly gotten larger. Curious if anyone can help identify them:

 

[midtnmike41]

Then drill it! It's allot easier than people think. What brand tank is it?

What he said!! Drill it. If I ever have a reason to empty my 90 gallon its going to be drilled for a ghost overflow. It's currently a corner overflow and works awesome with a Herbie drain but I'd love to have that space back.

 

[mikecfry]

I did! Not sure why I was so nervous, it was as easy as could be and now I have a 20G sump running pretty flawlessly. Thanks for the advice glad I went for it!