Plumbing for sump

Dazdnconfuzd · Jan 19, 2020

Plan on Drilling back of aquarium for sump on 30 gallon aquarium. Plan on doing Herbie style. My question is ; Is 3/4” drain lines the size of lines I need for this size of tank? And what size should return line be and what size of pump should I use? Thanks

motortrendz · Jan 19, 2020

I would definitly go 1in drains and 3/4 return. Are you mounting a box on your tank for the drains? Like an eshopps eclipse? They come with a template and the drill bit to drill the glass. Then you would just need the bit for the 3/4 return bulkhead. Attached is a screenshot I took from brs that shows the drill bit sizes you would need to cut the proper hole for the size bulkhead you want.

theMeat · Jan 19, 2020

Are you putting a ghost style box that herbie will flow from?

Reef-junky · Jan 19, 2020

Dazdnconfuzd said:
Plan on Drilling back of aquarium for sump on 30 gallon aquarium. Plan on doing Herbie style. My question is ; Is 3/4” drain lines the size of lines I need for this size of tank? And what size should return line be and what size of pump should I use? Thanks

Depends on what kind a flow you are going to put though the pipes for the overflow box. The return pipe depends on the pump and also the amount flow.

Dazdnconfuzd · Jan 19, 2020

Thank y’all for the information. I‘m actually drilling a Red Sea max 250, so will be using the overflow that is built in. the protein skimmer just takes up so much room . I’m drilling because I want to keep neat appearance that the hood provides. Yet I would like more filtration for the bioload that I might eventually have. Aquariums been up for 4wks but plan on just draining, drilling, and plumbing. Nothing in aquarium other than Marco rock sand and small cleanup crew. So if I’m going to do better do it now