Help with sump

[bondno9]

Hey guys, hope everyone is having a happy holidays. I'm looking into buying a Aquatop 26.2 gallon bookshelf aquarium. I wanted to ask what is the best way about setting up a sump? How many gallons should I go with? How should I plumb it so its quiet since It will be in my living room. I've never had a sump before so how should I set up the filtration? I currently have a AIO tank and just use filter floss. What else should I buy for the sump? I'll be throwing my heater in there, should I also invest in a skimmer as well for a 26 gallon tank? Thanks for any help in advance.

 

[fishyjoes]

I have a 20 gallon display with a 10 gallon sump. I think it's definitely worth it to get a sump if you can. It gives you more options on everything and lets the display stay free of extra equipment.

I drilled and installed a two pipe external overflow (fiji cube 600gph), set up in a "Herbie" style configuration where one pipe is a full siphon drain, and the other is a slight trickle and it is basically silent. My return nozzle goes up over the side so I only had to drill one (rather large) hole.

I ran a skimmer for a while but I stopped after running into problems due to low nutrients. My skimmer has been off for like 2 years now.

I have no mechanical filtration, but for a while I did experiment with putting a sponge filter on my return pump's input. It worked fine, I just didn't like having to clean it.

My sump has no partitions. Many people like them but I haven't found the need. In my sump I have a float valve for gravity fed ATO, return pump, skimmer (inactive), algae scrubber, heater, thermo-sensors, and a ph proble (also inactive).