Freshwater Sump

[Tcian]

Can one of you salt water gurus suggest a possible set up for a freshwater sump. The display tank is 150 US gal corner tank and the sump is a 50 US gal corner tank. The system I have uses a weir overflow into an 8 X 8 X 16 inch wet/dry trickle tower that sits in the corner of the sump tank. Top section of the tower has a filter pad, second section has bio ball and the third section is now empty. I was thinking of using the third section for carbon, but this might not be a large enough area. The rest of the sump has no dividers at all, and I don't think that I will need a bubble divider in a freshwater system. The display tank will house one common goldfish, two fantails, and a pair of blood parrots. I will also be using an undergravel jet system to help with water movement as this is quite a tall tank (30 in ). Given the large size of this sump, I would like to set it up to reduce maintenance chores. I have some experience with some large pond filters and I do not think that the wet/dry tower by itself will be near enough filtration for the kind of fish I have. I was thinking of just using an undergravel filter on the bottom of the sump, with a couple of inches of carbon on the top and plumbing the return pump to the ugf. I suspect that this may become a maintenance pain.

 

[SkiFletch]

That would be a tremendous maintenance pain. Syphoning something that is allready on ground level is nearly impossible . If I may suggest, a second elevated bio ball compartment for added filtration. Is there any way you can take a pic of what you've got? Its tough to get a grasp on what you have so far. The other option would be a large sponge section with a few removable sponges.

Also, what size pipes come from your overflow down to the sump?

 

[andywg]

Trickle tower filtration (assuming a large amount of your bio balls above the water level) is an extremely effective way of filtering an aquarium. I have a tower 13"x13"x11"tall filled with bioballs to filter a 6x2x2. Having the water flow onto filter floss before the drip plate onto the bioballs removes a large amount of physical waste before it can start breaking down into nitrogenous waste.

I would never replace bioballs with carbon. The effects of carbon in a FW tank are negligable, but the bioballs will aid the biological filtration.

If you want to reduce maintenance either stock lightly or grow plants in the sump (though the trickle tower will force any added CO2 out of the waer, so consider floating plants a top priority). If you wanted to be really fancy you could set up a bucket system to throw water across a screen and grow turf algae on it.

 

[Tcian]

Thanks guys, I think you may have just given me the insight I needed. The sump is a 50 gal corner tank located in the base cabinet so syphoning will not work. But your idea of the elevated bio balls will work. I can simply elevate the tower and fill the third compartment with more bio balls. Then I can adapt the bubble dividers that you guys use for salt water so that the third compartment is large enough for a bunch of filter sponges. This should give me roughly the equivalent of a 25 gal pond filter which should be enough to handle the fish load. I also have a Magnum 350 that I can run in the sump if I feel that I need the chemical filtration. Given that this is a corner tank with five sides, it kind of creates a useless area unless I move the tower to the rear and use the front corner for the return area. The tank is 19 inches high, any idea how high the glass for the bubble dividers should be? Drain line is 1" and since the overflow is at the top of the tank, I am guessing the flow could be about 300 gal per hour. 5 foot head from sump to top of tank probably would require a Mag 5 to keep everything even.

 

[SkiFletch]

1" drain line? I'd go mag 7 or 9.5

 

[Tcian]

Thanks SkiFletch