Building a sump

[dswofford]

Hey I was wondering if anyone out there has made a sump out of two tanks....
I am thinking about building two sumps out of two 29 gallon tanks and connecting the two with bulkheads. I've looked around trying to find pics of a setup like this but have struck out so far. I was thinking that tank one would house my skimmer and on the other side of the baffle would be my return pump. Then tank two would connect with bulk heads and it would be my fuge. I'm brand new to salt so any suggestions, or design ideas or if anyone has a setup like this and could throw some pics up that would be great!


| | | | |
|skimmer | return pump | | |
| | =====| refugium |
|___________|_______________| |________________|

or would it be better to have it this way???

| | | | |
|skimmer | refugium | | |
| | =====| return pump |
|___________|_______________| |________________|

 

[XxKnuckleheadxX]

first one would be better setup. because thats how i did mine! lol

 

[SeaBee]

Generally speaking I think you do a skimmer and return pump in the one, the place your second tank/fuge up a little higher than the sump. Take your return pump line and install a T and valve after the T and send the extra water up to the fuge and use a overflow from the fuge back to the sump skimmer area. That's how I've seen it done. RC has a few ideas on this I'm sure.....

 

[mng777777]

The 75g I just tore down had two tanks as the sump. I tried a few different methods of transfer from one to the other with these goals: Only use one pump in the fuge part of the system to minimize pod carnage, have reasonable flow through both tanks, be flood resistant, and minimize space needed for plumbing. I arrived at a system that worked pretty well. I had my skimmer and overflow in the largest part of the sump and my biggest pump in the return section of that tank. I also placed a bulkhead fitting in that section and gravity fed from that over the edge of the second, smaller tank. The smaller tank was my fuge which also had a return section and pump. This is the only pic I could find in my build thread.

 

[dswofford]

mng,
If you were to do it again, would you do anything different?

 

[project5k]

you might look at this pic as well, its just a slightly different layout that what is pictured above...

 

[mng777777]

mng,
If you were to do it again, would you do anything different?

Well the issue for me was that my stand/budget didn't allow for the size sump I wanted so I had to make do with this setup. The stand was really short and I couldnt find any cheap 30/40g tanks that would fit so I just decided to go with two tanks. Ideally, you would have the fuge elevated above the sump and just let it gravity feed into the sump. You would then eliminate the need for a second pump and would make the whole system more simple. Can you give some specifics of your system and what you are trying to accomplish?