second sump

[Martin H. Lawton]

Hope you all can see the picture. I just bought myself a ~12 gallon Sterilite industrial container and I want to use it as a second sump for water volume and as a refugium/frag tank. My question is does the flow arrows look good or should i switch it. I think there will be a back pressure issues I just want to make sure.

 

[Anthony Wood]

Is the rubbermaid on the ground with the other sump or will the rubbermaid drain into the other sump? Ive done the sump draining into another sump before as you have diagramed. Just make sure you way over size the bulkhead on the rubbermaid or you'll have issue with back pressure draining down as you said. Also make sure the drain from the rubber maid is an open siphon and not a full siphon or you'll have issue with water levels down the line in the return section on top of that an obnoxiously loud gurgle coming from the rubbermaid. Honestly its a recipe for either an overflow or a major drop in the salinity. I ended up just getting a larger sump and just running 1 sump. Its way less of a risk on top of being silent, the sump draining into another sump right off the tank drain was way to loud for my liking. You would be better off finding a 30 gallon long or 40g breeder it it'll fit under the tank. I say this because of the factors above and a lot of noise because you don't have a dedicated fish room.

Not saying this isn't possible. If you still want to do it the better way to do it would be to leave the main tank drain, draining into the 20g sump and either A) feed the rubbermaid with a manifold off the return or dedicated feed pump B) T-off the drain from the DT so that a majority of the water is still draining into the 20g sump and only have a percentage of the water draining to the rubbermaid. If you have a bean animal land style drain system you could run the full siphon to the 20g sump and run the open siphon to the rubbermaid.

Alternatively if the rubber maid is at the same level as the 20g you could hard plumb them together via bulkheads so that the water level in both would be at the same level and change at the same rate because the water pressure would be equal on both sides. Hope that helps!

 

[Anthony Wood]

Forgot to add put the drain from the DT on the opposite side of the bulkhead on the rubbermaid. Wont change anything for back pressure but if there on the same side the flow in the rubber maid will cause dead spots and cause an area for detritus to settle. This just makes more maintenance for you.

 

[Martin H. Lawton]

Is the rubbermaid on the ground with the other sump or will the rubbermaid drain into the other sump?

its going to drain

I ended up just getting a larger sump and just running 1 sump

Yeah I wish I could put a bigger sump under the tank but it can only fit a 20 long... the spot where I was going to put the refugium is way to small.

Just make sure you way over size the bulkhead on the rubbermaid or you'll have issue with back pressure draining down as you said.

the water from the display.. or the water going to the sump?

 

[Martin H. Lawton]

I was going to do this so it "could" be less noisy..

 

[Anthony Wood]

Ah thats unfortunate haha Running just one sump is less hassle the only reason I mentioned it.

Way oversize the bulkhead for the water draining from the rubbermaid to the 20g sump. Thats if you don't feed to rubbermaid off a manifold from the return pump, have a dedicated feed pump to the rubbermaid or T off the DT drain (have a ball valve on the rubbermaid side) to feed both the 20g and rubbermaid at different rates. If you do either of the 3 I listed in my second sentence you could just run a 1" bulkhead with no problems. If you do it linearly so that the DT drains into the rubbermaid and then the rubbermaid drains into the 20g sump before it gets returned. You'll have to way oversize the bulkhead.

Before I just ran 1 55g sump under my 125g DT I ran a 20g long draining into a 30g long tank for my sumps draining linearly like I described above. I found out the hard way by just nearly avoiding a flood, constantly battling salinity swings and having to turn my DC return pump way down. The bulkhead on the first tank or rubbermaid in your case needs to be way larger then the bulkheads on the DT (again if you don't use a pump to feed it or T off the DT drain). I ended up having to run a 2.5" bulkhead in order to get the turnover I needed through the sumps.

I highly recommend feeding the rubbermaid off either a pump (manifold off return or dedicated doesn't matter) or T fitting off the drain from the DT. You'll avoid a lot of problems, hassle and save the money on having to get a huge bulkhead, and hole cutting bit.

 

[Stephanie11]

I'd honestly keep your current setup as is, then add a second pump to pump to the Rubbermaid. So two seperate send and returns to the same sump. I've found this to be the best.

It's a lot less work and you have zero down time for the display

 

[Anthony Wood]

Mine was the exact same plumbing just with a 2.5" sanitary T. You have to run it with a hole in the cap for an open siphon. If you don't drill a hole in the cap you'll run a full siphon. With a full siphon its not a matter of if just a matter of when you run out of luck and flood the house. I personally almost flooded the house, in the event of a power outage, when the return turns back on the full siphon (i.e. no hole in the cap) take a few seconds to get started. During that time the water level keeps rising in your case the rubber maid until the siphon starts.

 

[Anthony Wood]

I'd honestly keep your current setup as is, then add a second pump to pump to the Rubbermaid. So two seperate send and returns to the same sump. I've found this to be the best.

It's a lot less work and you have zero down time for the display

Thanks, you put it more simply haha basically feed the rubbermaid with a pump not off the drain from the DT

 

[Martin H. Lawton]

Thanks guys :)

 

[Anthony Wood]

No problem man! Your gonna do what you want/have to that best fits your needs anyways lol just do the few precautions that can't not be done for obvious reason and everything will at minimum turn out ok and work perfectly fine. Obviously there is the most ideal way to do something and not so ideal way due to pitfalls it may have. But everything you could ever possibly do in your situation is listed above, tweek it to your needs. Best of luck and have fun with some plumbing, however "fun" it may be!

 

[Martin H. Lawton]

I changed my plan. I plan to put a T on the pipe coming from the sump to this display tank and making it into a frag tank.