What Do You Think Of My Sump Design?

Need thoughts here before I build
 
Here is a layout of my current plans on a sump. Please give me your thoughts and any changes you would make. 55 gallon tank

 

Section 1

First stage would be floss with a felt pad sitting on the egg crate.

Below that would be room for any media I need to add like carbon.

The next stage below would be filled with Bio Media about 1 inch from the egg crate.

 

Section 2

The water level will go to the white circle which is a PVC pipe, that pipe splits into smaller pipe that feeds down into 2 7x16 filter socks. Normal operation would be 200 microns and polishing I would change them to 100 or even 50. The 200 socks should not clog that quickly being I am using a pre filter of floss and felt pad.

 

Section 3

A drip tray with a felt pad to help spread the water evenly into sponges direct from the dollar store. As you can see the water lever would be about 1 inch above the bottom egg crate.

 

Section 4

Here is where I would put my heater and pump. I will still have room if I needed to add something else later.

 

May I suggest a planted refugium instead of the sponges?
 
I have been experimenting with refugiums for freshwater and they indeed work very well, and you can keep ugly plants hat are very beneficial in exporting nutrients as well as completely pack the refugium with plants without worrying about fish visibility.
 
I'm going to include one in my next upgrade.
 
That would also mean lowering the second buffer from the right to seal the bottom of the sump.
 
I'll get round to doing a sketch for you this evening of what I mean if I haven't been clear enough.

Do you think I would need it in a planted tank? I thought I would only need it if there was going to be no plants in the main tank

Not necessarily. The more plants you have the better, they are excellent natural filters (as you obviously know). A planted tank obviously has advantages over a non-planted tank in terms of stability and quater quality, and the more plants the better.
 
With a refugium you can scape and plant the display as you like, with attractive plants, positioned as you want for the effect you want to achieve, and at the same time have LOADS of plants in the system, many of which will be hidden away in the refugium.
 
You can plant the most useful plants regardless of their looks, and regularly harvest them to export nutrients without regard to how they will look. At the same time you will be carefully trimming the ones in the display to make them look the way you want, but it will be less work, as the ones in the refugium you don't have to be too careful about, you just chop them.
 
There is also another advantage: by having a 16 hour light period in the refugium countertimed to your 8 hours in the display (for example) you can have CO2 going into the system round the clock and still have ph stability because there will always be some illuminated plants in the system.
 
Another thing: if you have a lot of light for a long time in the refugium, that will stimulate algae to grow, and those algae will always outcompete any algae in the display for nutrients as they will have twice as much light as those in the display, and the display will have far fewer algae problems (if any).

If I add the plants I would have to add another sort of filter to catch any debri correct?

Not necessarily. The mechanical fltration you have already should be enough, and the plants, once settles in, shouldn't cause any debris. If you're REALLY picky you might want to put some very coarse sponge to trap any leaves that may come off the plants, but that's about it.
 
Also I would raise the last buffer to almost the height of the previous one.
 

You gave me something to think about. What should I use the substate?

I am going to use garden soil with a bit of clay mixed in.

Wouldn't the water flow disturb the planted section. I will be pushing over 1800g per hour
My thoughts would be that dirt would get stirred up.

You don't need that much flow in the sump, it can actually be detrimental to filtration. You might want to consider something around 400 gallons per hour max.
 
If you need more flow in the tank you might want to consider powerheads.

This is a 55g sump which will handle a 180g tank. I need to turn the water at least 5 times minimum. That being said I will need at least a 900g per hour. I was shooting for 2000 per hour pump in the return section.

My discus tank currently is 85 gallons and I'm using a return pump for 400 gallons, and it's doing more than fine.
 
Why do you want the high turnover?

You are supposed to turn your tank over 5 to 10 times an hour. You are turning yours over just about 3 times. You need to take the height and the elbows from your plumbing into the equations.

180 x 10 is 1800. I will have a 2 elbows and a tee to deal with on both the return and the input. A 2000 gph pump will most likly give me about 1300 to 1400 gph. That is about a 7 times turn over which puts me in the middle of the requirment. I am not saying the 3 times wont work but the norm is 5 - 10.

That works for filters, not for sumps. Sumps work well also with lower flow, since you usually have a much larger "treatment area" and the water gets processed much more thoroughly, especially if you add a refugium to the system.
 
In any case the sump for the current discus tank is level with the tank, so there isn't any height difference.

Would love to see your setup do you have pics