Can someone tell me step by step how to build a sump

From your suggestions, I think this is the way to go with my new 55 gallon. Can you all teach me how? TIA

The easiest way,is to look through the DIY forum.Theres alot of sump builds in there with pics.

agreed, or you can go buy one

I like the idea of a sump with 3 compartments. The side compartments will house the skimmer and refugium. The center compartment is where the return pump goes.



Sumps need to be as big as you can stuff under the stand. Taller is better. Gives ya more room for overflow in the case of a power outage. A 12" tall tank could overflow before the tank drained enough to stop going into the overflow boxes. The 18" tall sump--on the other hand--would have the volume to carry those extra 8 gallons of water and the overflow boxes in the tank would suck dry before your sump overflowed.

The only thing that I would change about RC's design would be to have both overflows drop into the skimmer chamber, then overflow to return chamber with a small maxi-jet powerhead pumping into the refugium(with a taller divider) then gravity overflow back into the return chamber.

that seems very complicated to set up ryan, why dont you just move the skimmer over to the middle and put the return at the end and have all the water flow into the refugium

Because I wouldnt want the raw unskimmed water going into a DSB it wouldnt collect so much detrious(CRAP!)

then couldnt you have it go into the skimmer, then the middle be fuge, then that goes through a micro-bubble trap, then third compartment is the return

Yup. I think that's a very common design.

Absolutely you could but I want my fuge to be more of a breeding area for pods than a DSB and I dont want to flow my entire system through the fuge.