External pumps and skimmer, what's left in you sump?

[Oberst Hajj]

I'm in the planning stages of my ~390 in wall tank and have been thinking about what I want to do with my sump. I plan on framing a fish room into my 3 car garage and I'm a little concerned about heat build up in the tank. I've been thinking that I will run external return pumps and an external skimmer. I'll have filter socks, probes, and dosing/ATO/AWC lines, and I might run a refugium. But is there anything else at would go into the sump? With the larger components outside of the sump, is there a reason to go with a large volume sump (besides just adding to the total system volume)?

 

[Ocelaris]

I think of the sump as a main landing point for all the external components. So the chiller, Carbon pellet mixer, Carbon filter, Calcium reactor etc... Not to mention the overflow. I went with the Synergy Reef 44 sock sump, and notice all the landing points for the overflow, returns and supplemental equipment. It worked out very well and is nearly silent. The covers over the socks and return add tremendously to the noise reduction. I enlarged two of the three landing points (in the middle) to 3/4". Having these landing pads (bulkheads) have been tremendously helpful in keeping everything organized and stable. I hate having tubes just aiming into the sump, knock one thing and the chiller return goes onto the floor. I'm not sure you need to spend $800, BUT, definitely the bulkheads to route everything to/from the sump is key, especially if you're making most of the equipment live outside the sump. The sump was money well spent, I'm in and out of it every day almost and it makes the tank work pleasurable. Organizing your plumbing is to me the most important part of designing a tank/sump system. Reducing the equipment IN the sump is fine, but if you have disorganized tubing/plumbing going into that reduced space, it's going to make work on the system frustrating.

 

[clm65]

Not sure how much rock you are planning to have in your DT, but a large sump will give you room for additional rock, matrix, marine pure blocks, etc.

 

[Ocelaris]

Here's what that sump filled up looks like

 

[Oberst Hajj]

Thanks guys. I'm not sure yet which types of reactors beyond Ca I'll be running, but those will probably be plumbed external via a manifold as well. Extra space for LR is a good point. I have some in my current 20g sump (under a 60g cube on a 26"x26" stand) and could easily put more if I had a bigger sump.

I'll definitely have an organized plumbing and wire area... I'm a little OCD in that area.

I'm really considering building my own acrylic sump. I've got a laser engraver/cutter and work with acrylic on a small scale and one of the local reef club members has an 8'x5' CNC router. Between the two of use I think we can get everything cut out and a couple of guys in the club are good at acrylic welding. I just need to figure out what all I want in it and go from there I guess.