Sump - Question

[KennyAr]

I bought a 65 gal fish tank for freshwater fishes. I have an old 10 gal sump which only supports up to a 40 gal tank. Instead of buying a larger sump, I put the 10 gal sump into a 40 gal breeder to allow water to flow through the 10 gal sump followed by the 40 gal breeded.
Since I don't really understand how a sump is supposed to work, my question is, does this help as an expanded larger sump or it does nothing but the same 10 gal sump?

Thanks.

 

[anewbie]

First sizing is really recommended not absolute. The way a sump works is water flows from the aquarium to the sump - through the media in the sump and then back up to the aquarium - much like a canister filter so a sump wouldn't be 'in' the aquarium it is typically below the aquarium though in some designs it can be above the aquarium.
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However there are a few gotcha for this to work correctly. The means by which the water moves to the sump has to stop if the power goes out (for the case where the sump is gravity fed and a pump is used to return the water); conversely you don't want the sump to overflow if the power goes out. If the means by which the sump is fed becomes clogged you don't want the aquarium to overflow by water being pumped from the sump into the aquarium. There are a lot of ways to implement these things and i won't iterate through them but hopefully this is enough for you to find more precise answers.
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If you simply take the sump and put it below the aquarium and run tubes to/from the aquarium and add a pump to the sump without solving the other issues expect a very wet room at some point in the future.

Hope this helps.


Btw there is no value of putting the sump into the 40; you could use the 40 as a sump if that is your question but you still have to make sure the means by which the water flow into the sump and back to the aquarium is able to handle power outages et all.

 

[MaloK]

It's generally not recommended to have a sump smaller than 25% of your show tank. Yours would be at 16%,

But imo in exception that your idea is to stock the tank with a lot of big fish. I would personally go up to 75 gallons with a 10 gallons sump...

Well populated with quality media, they are quite the pinnacle of filtration you can have.

If your sump kit comes with all the required hardware, you should have an overflow box etc...

If you build it like I think you did :

The water comes down from show tank to Your sump that overflows inside the breeder tank and you take water from that tank and bring it up to the show tank.

It's quite creative I would say ! You could also add filtration media to the breeder tank.

As long as you bring the water to the intake of the sump and draw from the breeder tank, You hold more water and have space to add more media.

Well done it could be the first two stage sump filter in existence

 

[KennyAr]

First sizing is really recommended not absolute. The way a sump works is water flows from the aquarium to the sump - through the media in the sump and then back up to the aquarium - much like a canister filter so a sump wouldn't be 'in' the aquarium it is typically below the aquarium though in some designs it can be above the aquarium.
-
However there are a few gotcha for this to work correctly. The means by which the water moves to the sump has to stop if the power goes out (for the case where the sump is gravity fed and a pump is used to return the water); conversely you don't want the sump to overflow if the power goes out. If the means by which the sump is fed becomes clogged you don't want the aquarium to overflow by water being pumped from the sump into the aquarium. There are a lot of ways to implement these things and i won't iterate through them but hopefully this is enough for you to find more precise answers.
-
If you simply take the sump and put it below the aquarium and run tubes to/from the aquarium and add a pump to the sump without solving the other issues expect a very wet room at some point in the future.

Hope this helps.


Btw there is no value of putting the sump into the 40; you could use the 40 as a sump if that is your question but you still have to make sure the means by which the water flow into the sump and back to the aquarium is able to handle power outages et all.

Thanks so much for the explanation.

 

[KennyAr]

It's generally not recommended to have a sump smaller than 25% of your show tank. Yours would be at 16%,

But imo in exception that your idea is to stock the tank with a lot of big fish. I would personally go up to 75 gallons with a 10 gallons sump...

Well populated with quality media, they are quite the pinnacle of filtration you can have.

If your sump kit comes with all the required hardware, you should have an overflow box etc...

If you build it like I think you did :

The water comes down from show tank to Your sump that overflows inside the breeder tank and you take water from that tank and bring it up to the show tank.

It's quite creative I would say ! You could also add filtration media to the breeder tank.

As long as you bring the water to the intake of the sump and draw from the breeder tank, You hold more water and have space to add more media.

Well done it could be the first two stage sump filter in existence

That's exactly what I did. Now I added tons of bio media into the breeder. Baffle kits and sumps are very expensive here in Canada. A breeder tank is much cheaper, while I can continue to use my 10 gallon sump.

 

[anewbie]

Be sure to test it by turning out the power. Also there is virtually no benefit to putting it in the 40b; you can use a 40b as a sump by lining it with sponges (which are more efficient than bio media - here is a picture of what i am talking about:

https://www.swisstropicals.com/wp_site/wp-content/uploads/Sump-layout.pdf

 

[MaloK]

That's exactly what I did. Now I added tons of bio media into the breeder. Baffle kits and sumps are very expensive here in Canada. A breeder tank is much cheaper, while I can continue to use my 10 gallon sump.

Nothing comes to my mind that would prevent this from working beautifully. In fact I think it's a great idea.

You can now use your sump principally as a mechanical filter and the breeder as a bio filter. It should have a very low maintenance requirement.