Advanced Aquarist
Fish Fanatic
If you want this to sink in more . . .
You got to look at the history of the sump itself.
Where did it start?
It all started with the marine, specifically the reef, hobby, with the introduction of the wet/dry filter. In those days (late 80s, early 90s), wet/dry was all the rage for reef keeping. It opened up a new way of doing fish keeping. Instead of using a canister with limited media, you now had a secondary tank what the main tank water flowed through. The possibilities were endless: to skimmers, reactors, refugiums, heaters, probes etc. . . And over time the reef keeping hobby realised that the wet/dry trickle tower was just a burden on the system, it was a nitrate factory, it was much better to skim off the organics before it could go through the nitrogen cycle. So they abandoned the wet/dry trickle tower - but they kept the sump.
And that's why nearly all commercially available reef ready aquariums come with a sump - there is not better way to do it. But all this comes at a cost. That cost is complexity and price.
Sumps are expensive to implement, of that there can be no discussion. Canisters are just what they are: just a container with a pump attached and some piping to get it connected to the tank, nothing more.
At the end of the day it's all down to cost. The reefing side of the hobby is willing to spend the money to get things right, and freshwater side is not - and probably doesn't need to.
Sumps have never been popular in freshwater planted tanks due to the fact they are complex and, most important, I really don't think they are needed - and this from someone who runs a sump on a planted tank. I've always suspected that the requirements for a planted tank is probably no biological filtration at all. All you really need is some sort of mechanical filter that will create good flow in the tank and that should be it, the biological filtration will be in the substrate and the plants, the filter's only job should be to just polish the water of detritus.
But again, I have to look at this forum: most people here don't even want to spend the money on what a good sump set up would cost. Because it IS a LOT of money. Most of the time sumps have to be planned into the design of the tank, unless you get a syphon box and know how to use it - and most don't BTW, which is why syphon boxes are not popular at all. So this would mean drilling holes for most people, or start again and buy a sump ready system.
That's why we shouldn't even be asking sump or canister. Because there was never any real competition.
All a sump is, is an implementation of a holding area for anything you want to work on the tank. And most hobbyists use sumps this way. This allowed you to keep most of the equipment out of the tank, that's what I use my sump for. You cannot do this with a canister filter, and if you try it will always be a second rate, clumsy, and annoying system to mainten and service.
You got to look at the history of the sump itself.
Where did it start?
It all started with the marine, specifically the reef, hobby, with the introduction of the wet/dry filter. In those days (late 80s, early 90s), wet/dry was all the rage for reef keeping. It opened up a new way of doing fish keeping. Instead of using a canister with limited media, you now had a secondary tank what the main tank water flowed through. The possibilities were endless: to skimmers, reactors, refugiums, heaters, probes etc. . . And over time the reef keeping hobby realised that the wet/dry trickle tower was just a burden on the system, it was a nitrate factory, it was much better to skim off the organics before it could go through the nitrogen cycle. So they abandoned the wet/dry trickle tower - but they kept the sump.
And that's why nearly all commercially available reef ready aquariums come with a sump - there is not better way to do it. But all this comes at a cost. That cost is complexity and price.
Sumps are expensive to implement, of that there can be no discussion. Canisters are just what they are: just a container with a pump attached and some piping to get it connected to the tank, nothing more.
At the end of the day it's all down to cost. The reefing side of the hobby is willing to spend the money to get things right, and freshwater side is not - and probably doesn't need to.
Sumps have never been popular in freshwater planted tanks due to the fact they are complex and, most important, I really don't think they are needed - and this from someone who runs a sump on a planted tank. I've always suspected that the requirements for a planted tank is probably no biological filtration at all. All you really need is some sort of mechanical filter that will create good flow in the tank and that should be it, the biological filtration will be in the substrate and the plants, the filter's only job should be to just polish the water of detritus.
But again, I have to look at this forum: most people here don't even want to spend the money on what a good sump set up would cost. Because it IS a LOT of money. Most of the time sumps have to be planned into the design of the tank, unless you get a syphon box and know how to use it - and most don't BTW, which is why syphon boxes are not popular at all. So this would mean drilling holes for most people, or start again and buy a sump ready system.
That's why we shouldn't even be asking sump or canister. Because there was never any real competition.
All a sump is, is an implementation of a holding area for anything you want to work on the tank. And most hobbyists use sumps this way. This allowed you to keep most of the equipment out of the tank, that's what I use my sump for. You cannot do this with a canister filter, and if you try it will always be a second rate, clumsy, and annoying system to mainten and service.
