Who all on here has actually built their own acrylic sump? I'm not talking about going to the store or some URL and purchasing a sump, I'm talking about you go to a plastics shop, you purchase some flat sheet and you turn it into a sump that fits your needs exactly? I'm just curious because back in April 2013, that is exactly what I did. I have a 90 gallon tank with a single overflow that is offset just enough to make my OCD go NUTZ!!! and I needed a sump to go under it. I had a little 15 or 20 gallon under there with a single 7" filter sock, but only just barely enough room for a skimmer and return pump. I looked online and for the size that would fit under my stand and give me the most volume was something around $400 to $500!!! That was just not going to happen.
So I called up a place here in OKC called Regal Plastics. They have or can get any kind of acrylic you want. I settled on 3/16" acrylic, that's 0.1875" or 4.7625mm for you metric folks. Not very thick, but with the walls in this sump, and the lip I ended up putting around the top it was enough. And going from 3/16" to 1/4" was a HUGE jump in price. I'm talking $40 a sheet! Just a little out of my price range at the time so I went with the thinner stuff and designed my sump to match.
I did a lot of research on what style of sump I wanted and to just do a typical sump with a drain section, refugium section and a return section was just boring to me. So I looked all over the net and found the Trigger Systems Ruby ELITE Sump - 36 inch and loved the design. The price of this sump was right around $450 and that just wasn't going to happen! But even still, they didn't have one that was 40", the max I could put into my stand. So I'm leaving 4" unused. Yes, I could use it for my ATO, but that would be a massive ATO container. I guess I could have used the extra room for dosing containers, but I dose Kalk so I don't need 2 or 3 part. So I settled on the Trigger design.
I grabbed pictures from every angle I possibly could and did a quick layout in sketchup to see it in front of me and decided I liked the setup. It works for what I need, lets build it!
Unfortunately, I didn't take as many pictures as I should have back then but the pictures I did take, well you will get the idea. First up is the basic shape of the sump. It is 40" long, by 15" front to back and 16" tall. This is the absolute MAX size I could fit under my stand because of the support bracing on the sides.
Don't worry about the piece sitting on top, it was just a scrap piece I had after playing with the acrylic and building a little Pico AIO tank. I still have it and it still has not seen water lol. Also, you will see that the bottom sheet is slightly oversized. It was way easier to do it this way and then use a router to flush cut it to the sides rather than cutting the bottom to size and then matching the walls to the base.
I did a little more work and this is when things got tough. I had to create a wall that separated chamber 1,2 3 and 4. Chamber 1 is where the water flows from the tank into the sump. It is very small and is only there to let the water come down, then back up and into the filter socks. Chamber 2 is the skimmer section which flows into chamber 3 which is the return section and later in life it also became the reactor section as well with some carbon/GFO. Chamber 4 is the refugium which flows into chamber 2 but has a direct path straight to chamber 3. The inlet to the skimmer is on the far corner away from where chanber 4 flows into chamber 2 so there is NO refugium water getting into the skimmer.
Here are a few pictures of that wall as well as putting up the other walls to make the sump, the sump!
Once the Weld-On 3 cured on this one, it was time to put the top rim on the tank for structural support. Like with the bottom, this is oversized and I used a flush cut router bit to make it fit perfectly. Also in this one you can see the two holes for the dual 4" filter socks. These were a royal pain in the butt to make since they have two different sizes in them so the filter socks can sit IN the holes rather than ON the holes. Allows for less water to pass by them.
From here I drilled two holes for the drain into the sump, one hole for the refugium and it was pretty much done. Below are pictures of my old sump, draining the tank, getting the old sump out and the new sump in. I of course did a water test for 24 hours on the new sump before doing this to make sure it was not going to explode when the main pump shut off. It doesn't fill up all the way, but it does get up to about 75% capacity if not a little more. So filling it up to the brim and letting it sit outside for 24 hours in the sun should have caused a failure if anything would. And no, this is not UV resistant acrylic, but 24 hours is not going to hurt it. It's still holding (kind of) to this day over 5 years later lol.
This was a very temporary setup as you will see and the only reason I had it slid to the right was because the drain from the tank fit perfectly into that right hole in the left side of the sump. I still needed to do the plumbing for this thing.
I did not like having only the refugium light as my only light source under the stand so I installed some adhesive LED's to the top of the under side of the stand and connected them with magnetic reed switches. It works GREAT! They are normally open unlike most other things but what this does is allow the Apex to show Open or Closed if the door is Open or Closed! Little detail, but it works lol. And, I have two switches, one for each door, wired in series so I'm only taking up ONE port on my breakout box.
And yes, that line for the return was being pinched here but this was a temp setup just to keep water flowing while I planned out the rest of the plumbing.
Here you can see the area where the water flows into the sump and then into the filter socks.
Here you can see the PH Probe (Blue) and the ORP Probe (Red). If you have questions about, ask someone else. I understand it, I know what it does but explaining it is difficult lol. I have since removed that probe from my system since the probe leaked and was showing off the wall readings. I'm talking into the 700's lol. It's nice to have, but in all reality, is not needed.
Here is a picture of my ATO (Auto Top Off) float switch. As you can see, it's a bit low but I'm still trying to fine tune the system for the best water level.
Here you can see the water level in the return section. Behind it is the refugim that I will be plumbing in when I get the parts this weekend.
Once again, this was from 2013 so all of these pictures are pretty old and if I was just now doing it, I would be taking more pictures lol.
I finally got all of the plumbing done and below is what it looked like with a fresh setup. Yes, I let the glue cure for 24 hours before running water through it.
Here is a shot of the return back to the tank. As you can see, there is a bit going on here.
Here is a shot of the drain into the sump as well as the return to the tank.
So I called up a place here in OKC called Regal Plastics. They have or can get any kind of acrylic you want. I settled on 3/16" acrylic, that's 0.1875" or 4.7625mm for you metric folks. Not very thick, but with the walls in this sump, and the lip I ended up putting around the top it was enough. And going from 3/16" to 1/4" was a HUGE jump in price. I'm talking $40 a sheet! Just a little out of my price range at the time so I went with the thinner stuff and designed my sump to match.
I did a lot of research on what style of sump I wanted and to just do a typical sump with a drain section, refugium section and a return section was just boring to me. So I looked all over the net and found the Trigger Systems Ruby ELITE Sump - 36 inch and loved the design. The price of this sump was right around $450 and that just wasn't going to happen! But even still, they didn't have one that was 40", the max I could put into my stand. So I'm leaving 4" unused. Yes, I could use it for my ATO, but that would be a massive ATO container. I guess I could have used the extra room for dosing containers, but I dose Kalk so I don't need 2 or 3 part. So I settled on the Trigger design.
I grabbed pictures from every angle I possibly could and did a quick layout in sketchup to see it in front of me and decided I liked the setup. It works for what I need, lets build it!
Unfortunately, I didn't take as many pictures as I should have back then but the pictures I did take, well you will get the idea. First up is the basic shape of the sump. It is 40" long, by 15" front to back and 16" tall. This is the absolute MAX size I could fit under my stand because of the support bracing on the sides.
Don't worry about the piece sitting on top, it was just a scrap piece I had after playing with the acrylic and building a little Pico AIO tank. I still have it and it still has not seen water lol. Also, you will see that the bottom sheet is slightly oversized. It was way easier to do it this way and then use a router to flush cut it to the sides rather than cutting the bottom to size and then matching the walls to the base.
I did a little more work and this is when things got tough. I had to create a wall that separated chamber 1,2 3 and 4. Chamber 1 is where the water flows from the tank into the sump. It is very small and is only there to let the water come down, then back up and into the filter socks. Chamber 2 is the skimmer section which flows into chamber 3 which is the return section and later in life it also became the reactor section as well with some carbon/GFO. Chamber 4 is the refugium which flows into chamber 2 but has a direct path straight to chamber 3. The inlet to the skimmer is on the far corner away from where chanber 4 flows into chamber 2 so there is NO refugium water getting into the skimmer.
Here are a few pictures of that wall as well as putting up the other walls to make the sump, the sump!
Once the Weld-On 3 cured on this one, it was time to put the top rim on the tank for structural support. Like with the bottom, this is oversized and I used a flush cut router bit to make it fit perfectly. Also in this one you can see the two holes for the dual 4" filter socks. These were a royal pain in the butt to make since they have two different sizes in them so the filter socks can sit IN the holes rather than ON the holes. Allows for less water to pass by them.
From here I drilled two holes for the drain into the sump, one hole for the refugium and it was pretty much done. Below are pictures of my old sump, draining the tank, getting the old sump out and the new sump in. I of course did a water test for 24 hours on the new sump before doing this to make sure it was not going to explode when the main pump shut off. It doesn't fill up all the way, but it does get up to about 75% capacity if not a little more. So filling it up to the brim and letting it sit outside for 24 hours in the sun should have caused a failure if anything would. And no, this is not UV resistant acrylic, but 24 hours is not going to hurt it. It's still holding (kind of) to this day over 5 years later lol.
This was a very temporary setup as you will see and the only reason I had it slid to the right was because the drain from the tank fit perfectly into that right hole in the left side of the sump. I still needed to do the plumbing for this thing.
I did not like having only the refugium light as my only light source under the stand so I installed some adhesive LED's to the top of the under side of the stand and connected them with magnetic reed switches. It works GREAT! They are normally open unlike most other things but what this does is allow the Apex to show Open or Closed if the door is Open or Closed! Little detail, but it works lol. And, I have two switches, one for each door, wired in series so I'm only taking up ONE port on my breakout box.
And yes, that line for the return was being pinched here but this was a temp setup just to keep water flowing while I planned out the rest of the plumbing.
Here you can see the area where the water flows into the sump and then into the filter socks.
Here you can see the PH Probe (Blue) and the ORP Probe (Red). If you have questions about, ask someone else. I understand it, I know what it does but explaining it is difficult lol. I have since removed that probe from my system since the probe leaked and was showing off the wall readings. I'm talking into the 700's lol. It's nice to have, but in all reality, is not needed.
Here is a picture of my ATO (Auto Top Off) float switch. As you can see, it's a bit low but I'm still trying to fine tune the system for the best water level.
Here you can see the water level in the return section. Behind it is the refugim that I will be plumbing in when I get the parts this weekend.
Once again, this was from 2013 so all of these pictures are pretty old and if I was just now doing it, I would be taking more pictures lol.
I finally got all of the plumbing done and below is what it looked like with a fresh setup. Yes, I let the glue cure for 24 hours before running water through it.
Here is a shot of the return back to the tank. As you can see, there is a bit going on here.
Here is a shot of the drain into the sump as well as the return to the tank.
