10 gallon reef tank!

[trigger]

I was thinking of putting together a "10 Gallon" reef tank. The thing is it that would be cooler to have a 30 Gallon sump! Ahh! Kind of like cheating I guess. I was thinking of a large wet-dry filter and a protein skimmer located in the 30 out of sight! Anyone done this? I have seen the brave souls with 10 or even 5 gallon tanks but I often wonder, why not have this large sump out of sight to stablize things?

What do ya all think?

 

[Yenko]

I think a sump is a good idea. I've been SCUBA diving in tropical places, and I think the appearence of a reef is enhanced by a sump. Reefs have amazingly dense fish life, and everything around them is an endless field of empty sand and blue. With a sump you have the look of densely-packed marine life without overstocking. Good luck. Make sure you have devices to stop the water flow both on the tube going into the sump and the pump going out of it.

 

[JeremyD]

The problem with the large sunp is getting the flow right. It takes alot of time to adjust things so that the sump will pump to the main tank exactly at the same it is being syphoned from the main tank. But that is really not a difficult task. The big thing is when something goes wrong. With a normal sump, if the syphon is broken, the main tank usually will not overflow. If you are talking about a sump that is 3 times larger than the main tank, then overflow is a very real possibility.

But, with a little bit of work and some inginuity I bet you could make it work. I persaonlly am a big fan of nano-tanks and would love to see you be sucessful with one.

Check out www.nanotank.com and www.nano-reef.com

 

[smithrc]

drill the tank and use over flow rather than syphon... then the water will always drain out when the water level rises...

(or have i missed something? - quite possible)

 

[ste2k3]

for a sump, I would have the tank drilled through the base and have a stand pipe taking water from the surface of the tank. as water is pumped into the tank from the sump, water will overflow down this pipe back to the sump. I wouldn't go for a wet'n'ndry filter. Instead, I'd go with pleanty of live rock and a big skimmer and maybe a refugium. I'f you need any more info on plumbing a sump, let me know.

One question, why have such a small tank and a large sump? In theory it should work but you would have less room for fish if any and it wouldn't be a chalange like a nanoreef?

ste