Sump Conversion Questions

[ollysaquariums]

Hey everyone,
I’m considering buying an aqua one marine aquarium 4ft long off marketplace second hand to replace my aqua one horizon 182 as I want a dedicated marine aquarium with an overflow box and sump rather than a hang on back skimmer and filter. A few rapid fire questions I have are:

- Will I have to wait for the tank to recycle all over again or can I add everything in right away if I put in the original tank’s sand, live rock, bio media, etc like I was planning to?

- Since I have never used a sump before, how do I do it and will I have to buy heaps more things other than a return pump and filter sock?

- What layout do I need in the sump like where to put my skimmer, mechanical filtration and bio media? I’m planning on keeping fish with high bioloads so need heaps of bio media, especially since I currently already have a scopas tang and maybe want a tomini if I can fit in the size tank.

- What goes in a filter sock, carbon or nothing?

Thanks in advance for answering my questions if you can! I may sound really dumb but I’m clueless with sumps haha

 

[cdemoss01]

I wanna do the same thing so I will be following this thread.

 

[AlanS]

Hey everyone,
I’m considering buying an aqua one marine aquarium 4ft long off marketplace second hand to replace my aqua one horizon 182 as I want a dedicated marine aquarium with an overflow box and sump rather than a hang on back skimmer and filter. A few rapid fire questions I have are:

- Will I have to wait for the tank to recycle all over again or can I add everything in right away if I put in the original tank’s sand, live rock, bio media, etc like I was planning to?

- Since I have never used a sump before, how do I do it and will I have to buy heaps more things other than a return pump and filter sock?

- What layout do I need in the sump like where to put my skimmer, mechanical filtration and bio media? I’m planning on keeping fish with high bioloads so need heaps of bio media, especially since I currently already have a scopas tang and maybe want a tomini if I can fit in the size tank.

- What goes in a filter sock, carbon or nothing?

Thanks in advance for answering my questions if you can! I may sound really dumb but I’m clueless with sumps haha

Technically you don't need to buy anything to put in your sump. At a minimum it adds total water volume which is always helpful. You can put a protein skimmer in the sump, your heater, and plain socks on the water flowing into it. You can also put a carbon bag in there. If it has a divider you could add some beneficial algae as well to have a mini refugium.