DIY 10 Gallon Sump

[Fishko]

Looks great! What skimmer is that?

Eshops x120 space saving, they discontinued it, but you can buy the s120 i think still. Both are dead silent and great. Sicce pumps. I dont think im going to be doing a refugium. My tanks nutrients arent getting that high currently. Ive been feeding reef roids every other daily and dosing 1ml acro power daily with no affect on nutrients. Phos stays .06 nitrate 3-5ppm
Edit: turns out you can still find the skimmer just not on brs

 

[Acros]

I’m building a 10 gallon sump refugium for my 29 gallon display tank. I am thinking of using a fiji cube diy kit.

My main form of nutrient export will be the refugium with chaeto. What lights do you use in the fuge? How’s is your experience so far with the sump?

 

[Nano207]

1) The input or overflow chamber (not sure what it’s officially called). 4.5” x 4.5”. I put a shelf in the bottom made of egg crate. I will put filter floss and probably a bag of activated carbon on the shelf. Water flows down through this chamber and underneath the clear baffle in 2.

2) Nano protein skimmer. 5” x 4.5” x 9”d. I set the water level at 9” to accommodate most nano skimmers.

3) Refugium. 12” x 10“. I plan on running it around 7” deep. This should leave enough space for at least 2 gallons of overflow from the display (my current estimate). I don’t plan on sand, but may put some rock rubble in here. I have a kessil H80 for a light that will be mounted about 6” off the surface. I also plan to spray paint the front, back and bottom of the fuge with white paint to capture more light. No reason to waste light spilling out of fuge.

4) Return. 3.5” x 10”. Running 7” deep.

I hope you are ok with me using your design this is awesome! I will be making a 10g sump for my 35g. I was just looking for inspiration and just found your post here. I like your idea about using white acrylic to make use of more light!

 

[filishy]

Technical note. I used DAP Aquarium safe 100% silicone in a squeeze tube from Ace Hardware. The baffles seem to be plenty strong. We’ll see how they do long term.

Hiya! I was wondering, you had the baffles made out of acrylic, or glass? I was under the impression you couldn't use acrylic with glass but then again, what do I know? ;Cat I ask because I am planning the same exact sump due to space and budget limitations. Thank you.

 

[BitReef]

I hope you are ok with me using your design this is awesome! I will be making a 10g sump for my 35g. I was just looking for inspiration and just found your post here. I like your idea about using white acrylic to make use of more light!

Steal away! I gathered help from a bunch of sources to come up with this. Unfortunately, I have been able to set up my new tank yet so I haven’t put it into action.

 

[BitReef]

Hiya! I was wondering, you had the baffles made out of acrylic, or glass? I was under the impression you couldn't use acrylic with glass but then again, what do I know? ;Cat I ask because I am planning the same exact sump due to space and budget limitations. Thank you.

A lot of people say the silicone won’t adhere to the acrylic, but it seems to be plenty strong to me. I’m sure if I really tried I could tear the baffles out, but I don’t think they’ll be under that much stress. I haven’t set up my new tank yet so I don’t have a long term test, but it worked fine in a water leak test.

 

[Nano207]

I had to make a few tweaks to work for my plumbing but im happy with how it came out! Thank you for this build thread it was a huge help!

 

[Nano207]

The writing is on the outside of the glass not on the acrylic, Im going to flow test and then paint the outsides and the bottom of the fuge white for light reflection

 

[Scracing]

This my set up works good

 

[BitReef]

Life has been too busy and my progress has been slow. But I have been running a leak test the past 48 hours. Good thing. I had 2 small leaks to fix. I mounted the overflow box incorrectly the first time.

 

[BitReef]

Here’s the plumbing. I’m very happy with it.

 

[BitReef]

Now I need to make some changes to the cabinet. My cabinet is not a fish tank stand. It’s a piece of furniture. It has an upper drawer and the lower section is cabinet space. Originally I put everything (sump, ATO reservoir and electronics) in the cabinet space. I’ve decided it’s too cramped and I’m afraid a plug or something might fall into the sump. So, I’ve decided to use the drawer cavity as my “dry” space and put all of the electrical stuff up there. That separates the dry zone from the wet zone, increases safety and gives me a lot more space to work with. The drawer cavity is actually pretty big. I just have to figure out how to keep the drawer face, and convert it into a false drawer.

 

[BitReef]

My drawer is 13” deep, front to back. I’m going to modify it so that it is either completely false (only a face), or greatly reduced (4” front to back). This is a little complicated by the fact that the drawer face is curved and not flat. I don’t think a hinge will work. It will probably need to slide out, when I want access to the power strips.

 

[BitReef]

I should have posted the details of my cabinet in my build log. I’ll continue to document my cabinet progress over there if you’re interested.

 

[Snow Devils]

I really like your idea of using a piece of furniture for the tank and kind of hiding your sump inside. The outside appearance is superior in my mind to a regular tank stand. Also, good call about the false drawer conversion as there is no reason to underutilized that space.

 

[homer1475]

The problem with acrylic baffles and a glass tank......

Acrylic swells when it gets wet, and if the baffles are tight to the glass, it will shatter the tank. Silicone doesn't "stick" to acrylic either, but it can be used if you sandwich the acrylic on both sides with a thick bead of silicone just as you have done.

 

[BitReef]

53 days into my cycle. Sump is working great. I’m very happy with it so far. Of course I don’t have any chaeto yet (too early). IceCap K1 nano skimmer seems to be doing well. Water level stays consistent with the tunze ato. I added a pvc pipe to the back of the return chamber and located my ato line in the top of the pipe. That way I don’t start a siphon since my ato is taller than my sump water level. Works great. No splash. No siphon.

 

[BitReef]

So far, the only “flaw” I’ve found is that changing my filter pads is difficult because the are in the back corner, behind the skimmer. I can’t get my hand back there with everything hooked up. I found and easy solution though. I got this plastic “hook” out of my gun cleaning kit. It works perfectly. I can hook the old pads and pull them out, and push the new ones down into place all without getting my hands wet.