Is A Sump Absoloutely Necessery?

[orange shark]

Hey,

Is a sump absoloutely necessery in a large tank say 75 gallons? Can you buy them cos i would'nt feel comfortable setting one up myself as id have so idea what im doing? Can anyone run me through the need of a sump and what it does?

thanks, orange shark

 

[SkiFletch]

Absoloutely necessary, no. Extremely useful, yes. Advantages of a sump include:

Extra water volume to delay the onset or severity of chemistry problems and keep a more stable temperature
Place to hide unsightly skimmers, heaters, canister filters, hob filters, phosphate reactors, calcium reactors, etc
Place to perform water changes without stirring up your display tank water too much
Place to dose freely without worrying about shocking corals
Easy location to acclimate fish (drip acclimate while the bag is clamped to the side of the tank)
Great place to put problem crabs/hitchhikers
And prolly other things I'm forgetting

Having used a sump, I would never setup a tank without one. Making one really is not hard at all. Just cheat and use a pre-made glass tank, and silicone in some glass or plexiglass divider walls. Just my oppionion really but I'd go for it

 

[Filmoholic]

I agree with Ski, I have a 75gallon reef tank and it is beautiful, however I don't have a sump so by the time you get all the equipment on the back of the tank it is hard to hide all that junk. it really is a personal opinion so you do not need one but as Ski mentioned above there are a lot of good benefits! but I have a very succesfull reef without one so either way you will be fine. Just pile the lr up!
Good luck!

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Question on similair topic (though not really I guess.... )

If you are setting up a sump specifically to try and increase the pod population do you find that a good portion of pods make it into the main tank or do you manually scoop some out and add them to the main tank?

I ask because I would quite like to get a scooter blenny and from my understanding they are very fussy eaters and you need to make sure you have a large enough pod population to keep them going.

 

[orange shark]

Im taking it your not asking me that

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Im taking it your not asking me that

Nah it was half aimed at Ski ,unless you happen to kno wthe answer

Was just a handy opportunity to ask a question that was floating around in my head without having to start a new thread for it.

 

[SkiFletch]

Lol, then I'll half-answer it

In a tank where the "sump" is below the display, some pods can/will make it from the refugium, through the pump, and back up to the display. Contrary to popular belief, the impeller rarely seems to kill the pods, however pods rarely enter the chamber where the pump is actually housed. Most of us keep "sterile" final chambers of our sumps with the return pump in it in an attempt to prevent the pump from sucking chaeto, sand, etc up into its inlet and gumming up the impeller. Therefore, that final chamber is usually not a place most pods "hang out". They're much more attracted to the LR/chaeto in the fuge section, and tend to stay there.

Having said all that, the best idea for a "pod fuge" would be to have a "sump" tank over the top of the display tank and allow a gravity feed back to the main tank. Tends to work better this way.

You do have one other decent alternative. Put clumps of chaeto in your display tank in say the back corners or something. This'll help keep the pod population going too.

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Thanks once again!

Might have a look at putting a small tank above the 90g for Chaeto and later on for coral frags..... (thinking about it this could be pretty cool for the space I have..... )

 

[Musho3210]

im guessing HOB refugiums are better for pods?

 

[AK77]

A sump with a large refugium is great for copepod development. I've got 5 or 6 balls of Chaetomorpha which Ski mentioned. You can even keep this in the main tank, held in place behind live rock. The fish can only pick off the pods that are on the outside, with the remaineder pretty much safe and sound in the middle.

 

[xxBarneyxx]

I did read somewhere that fish can die from eating cheato though. Source probably wasnt reliable but can anyone comment either way on that?

 

[AK77]

Hmm. Never come across that myself, not to say that it isn't true, although unless some species are somehow alergic to it or get stuck in their throats, I'd be surprised by it.

Do you have the source? Id be interested reading it.

AK

 

[xxBarneyxx]

I read it on a random thread over at RC. Seemed that the people there thought it wasa load of BS though. Cant remeber what the thread was actually about though (this just sort of came up in passing). The person that mentioned it said that it compacted within the fish and was not digestable.

 

[SkiFletch]

Load of BS. In fact, most fish dont eat chaeto cause it tastes bad