Sump Overflow Direct or Indirect?

[MantisShrimpMan]

2 - You need a way for water to bypass your filter roller for WHEN it fails and becomes clogged.

The roller I’m looking at has a port for tuning water height, and also has emergency drains if it fails. If it were to fail in that way, it would just translate to the filter roller effectively turning into a second spillover chamber. Don’t think that’s too big a deal considering it’s still in the sump.

As for the rest of your points, yes, I’m planning to run a proper complete sump, despite my diagrams not showing the skimmer fuge and return chambers. And so the skimmer water height will remain stable as well. And I’ll have my ATO sensor in the return pump as per usual so that should be a non issue with evaporation as well.

 

[BeanAnimal]

I have social communication disorder and ADHD. I have a biological tendency (it’s not like I consciously choose to do this) that leads to me focusing heavily on every last detail, AND write a lot in the process. Im sorry if I’m a ‘firehose of info’ But this is how I think and who I am.

My brain works a lot like yours, so I fully understand. It takes a lot of effort to narrow things down to a concise point. I am far older than you and still learning how to tame it.

I should also mention, Im a fairly broke college student, I will struggle to afford a nice complete system on my own at the moment. Fortunately, someone I look up to has said he’d consider providing some funds to help me out with this tank IF I can provide him with a finalized parts list for budgeting- before starting this build. So, under those circumstances, I DO need to plan out every last detail.

I think that highlights the need to really keep things as simple as you can. You indicated that you wanted to build a sump. Do you have the skills and tools to do that?

I‘m sorry if my long-windedness is frustrating, but given who I am and my circumstances for planning this tank, this is somewhat necessary for me.

Frankly, I don’t love having to share this, but given your evident frustration with my posts I figured I had to provide the context.

I am not frustrated at all and you have done absolutely nothing wrong. Your posts are very detailed and you are clearly trying to navigate what feels like a huge number of variables and options. I am attempting to get you to slow down just a bit and solve one small easy problem at a time.

Don't be overwhelmed. Just move forward with the goal of keeping things simple and solving one problem at a time.

Design around these things.
1 - stability
2 - ease of maintenance

Solve one issue at a time. Are you going to buy or build a sump? Answer that and we can move to the next part.

 

[twentyleagues]

A is the one id use. Water should still be able to go over the baffle if the pipe or mat become clogged but probably wont in normal operation. Current sump I built for my new tank will use little to no mechanical filtration which is the way i went eventually on my last set up years ago.

 

[MantisShrimpMan]

My brain works a lot like yours, so I fully understand. It takes a lot of effort to narrow things down to a concise point. I am far older than you and still learning how to tame it.


I think that highlights the need to really keep things as simple as you can. You indicated that you wanted to build a sump. Do you have the skills and tools to do that?


I am not frustrated at all and you have done absolutely nothing wrong. Your posts are very detailed and you are clearly trying to navigate what feels like a huge number of variables and options. I am attempting to get you to slow down just a bit and solve one small easy problem at a time.

Don't be overwhelmed. Just move forward with the goal of keeping things simple and solving one problem at a time.

Design around these things.
1 - stability
2 - ease of maintenance

Solve one issue at a time. Are you going to buy or build a sump? Answer that and we can move to the next part.

Build. And I’m an engineering student with hundreds if not thousands of hours of prototyping in wood and metal shops. A little DIY won’t hurt me.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Build. And I’m an engineering student with hundreds if not thousands of hours of prototyping in wood and metal shops. A little DIY won’t hurt me.

Primary sump considerations:
1 - available area
2 - overall volume
3 - equipment that will run from sump
4 - backflow capacity
5 - evaporation capacity
6 - ease of maintenance
7 - internal or external return pump

Those are the base variables that will drive the design.

 

[MantisShrimpMan]

Primary sump considerations:
1 - available area
2 - overall volume
3 - equipment that will run from sump
4 - backflow capacity
5 - evaporation capacity
6 - ease of maintenance
7 - internal or external return pump

Those are the base variables that will drive the design.

i already have a design in mind, I’ll drop some pics in a bit.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Any updates?

 

[MantisShrimpMan]

Any updates?

I was just about to post! Glad to see your continued interest You’ll have to forgive me- this is gonna be a LONG one. Lot of ground to cover on sump design. I have an idea of what I want to do but I’m struggling with a couple finalizing logistics.

So, the DT is a 50cm cube (50cm=19.685”) with a water volume of 30.9 gallons.

I’d like a 45cm cube (45cm=17.716”) as my sump, but I’m not certain that leaves enough room to fit in the stand (which I plan to make out of aluminum extrusion). Need to give that some more thought. A key component of this is whether or not I choose to incorporate a ledge into the stand, like this: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/building-stand-exact-size-vs-oversized-top.699067/ I‘m leaning towards incorporating a ledge, but I’d love input!

If I choose a flush stand , I’ll use a 40cm cube (40cm=15.748”) with a water volume of 16 gallons as my sump.

I’ve previously spoken to @rvitko (Roger from Tunze USA) and I’d love to use the 9004 DC skimmer. Although I’m not set on it yet- I’d also consider the PLS-50.

Assuming I use the Tunze 9004, I need about 10” water height in use. I don’t have a good sense of this- but let’s assume that during a power outage, with drilled overflows, my water level will drop 2” (please correct me if I’m underestimating this for a typical overflow system!). In the 50cm DT, that translates to about 3.25 gallons, give or take. In the 40cm cube sump, very imprecisely accounting for the displacement of the baffles or the neck of the protein skimmer or anything like that, that should translate to about 3.5-4” water gain. And since that translates to about 14” water height in a 15.7 tank, even if a power outage were to flow over my baffles, it wouldn’t flood out of the sump. And if I go with the larger 45cm cube sump, that’s got even more room for the sake of safety. That’s an important thing to confirm ahead of time, right?

As for sump design, I’m taking a lot of inspiration from the trigger systems platinum 20C. The U-shaped path that the water takes through that sump is a good blueprint.

(Credits & Thanks to @Daveph68 - this pic was the closest thing I could find to a birdseye view for drawing on)

So here’s the gist of my plan:

The thing I’m working on is figuring out how to build in that spillover chamber. It’s not so much a question of “oh no I don’t have enough space!” as it is of “how to do this intelligently?” That’s why its shown with highlighters instead of a definitive baffle wall- I’m not sure if it makes more sense to sit in the horizontal or vertical orientation (relative to this diagram). Since bulkheads have much larger overall diameters than the nominal PVC size they fit, and 90 degree elbows add to the overall footprint of a PVC assembly:

Sure, if you‘re working with nominally sized 1.5” pvc then the blue dimension would be like 1.5-1.6”, but what about the black dimension? Hard to plan out a tight fitting sump without knowing these sorts of measurements. I’ve been planning around using the 40cm sump just in case i resort to it, but the 45cm cube leaves me a LOT more room to work with for this.
So like, I had planned on running the spillover chamber in the blue orientation, but realized that since a bulkhead on the shared side with the filter roller would require me to make the chamber much wider than the pvc drains themselves need, I’d be taking a LOT of room away from the return chamber:

Notice how the bulkhead ends up being so much wider that the drainpipes would need the chamber to be. But then if I ran it in the red orientation, it would require me to use a bunch of fittings to awkwardly transform the drain pipes from inline horizontally to inline vertically:

Alternatively, I could run the red orientation but have the left side of the drawing line up with the front of the aquarium? But this led me to wonder- what if I did some kinda hybrid solution by using a 90 degree bend? Like this:

Yes: I know this solution is psychotically over complicated. With that said- it would allow the spillover chamber to remain super narrow, and wouldn’t necessarily take room away from the return chamber since the portion of the return pump which isn’t where the tube comes out the top could sit under that bend. With that said, this solution would be hard to pull off in the 40cm, and in the 45cm I think theres enough room to spare that this wouldn’t be really necessary to consider anyways.

The other detail is metric vs imperial. As shown on BRS website, the Reef Factory smart roller has a 40mm tube fitting. And 40mm=1.57”, so you’d assume that means a 40mm nominal metric PVC is closest to A 1.5” nominal imperial PVC, right? Yet, on the BRS website, all three of the available fittings that convert metric sizes to imperial sizes convert a 40mm to a 1.25”. I guess that the metric system must use O.D. for nominal naming whereas we use I.D., or something like that.

I could also use a bit of input on planning redundancy into the dimensions of the sump. It seems like a good idea to have extra room in the skimmer and return chambers in case I ever want to add another media reactor or change return pumps to one a bit larger, but I’m not sure to what extent excess room is practical vs overzealous. I’d like to run a UV sterilizer (planning on posting a thread with some questions about that soon) and I find the science behind ozone usage absolutely FASCINATING. So, I’d love the room to run more pumps in the future for closed loops and other stuff like that.

Also, I’ve seen people preaching the importance of sump access on here, and I’ve seen a couple instances of people putting their sump on drawer slides so you can pull it out to work on it. I get the sense that is too over complicated, but still figured I’d ask and see if others agreed that was excessive?

 

[MantisShrimpMan]

Sorry for such a massive wall of text. As I said, a lot of material to cover on sump design. It has since occurred to me that something like this:

could help preserve the size of the return chamber while also providing an equivalent solution to the elbow with less plumbing complexity.

I should also note: my current tank sits in the bend between two couches in an L in my living room, and next to it is a small end table. With this aluminum stand, regardless of whether it has a ledge at the aquarium height or not, I plan on incorporating a lower surface to turn the current aquarium stand + side table into a singular piece of furniture, and I’d use the room underneath the side table for the electrical stuff and the ATO reservoir

 

[BeanAnimal]

Suggestions:

While solvent welding acrylic is not hard, it takes patience and practice and precision. You must consider the glue-up order based several factors from ease to fitment and what/if an error (even small) means for the fitment. This may seem trivial, but until you have wet solvent flowing and things falling, you will not understand. This is another "keep it simple" piece of advice.

I would avoid the dog leg design in the image above. It is unnecessary complication.

Water bubbles popping and splashing will create a lot of salt creep. Keep that in mind. Ease of cleanup is important, as is the configuration of the input area. A "ledge" is somewhere for salt creep to accumulate.

I am not a fan of refugia (I ran various types for years). They need a decent amount of space and a lot more flow than people estimate. They are detritus traps and if not maintained become a mess. If you insist on one, it needs to be very easy to fully clean.

The filter roller and skimmer do not need to be in different compartment. Save the acrylic and the design hassle.

I don't see the benefit in a complicated intake compartment. It adds complexity to the build for no real benefit.

If it were me, I would maximize the return chamber to allow for leeway with evaporation if the auto top-off fails or runs dry, etc.

If you are set on the filter roller and know that you are not going to use filter socks ever, then a small input chamber with a divider wall and bulkhead that feeds the roller will be fine. That separating wall should be lower than the overall sump height in case the filter roller clogs. The exit wall to that section will set the water level height for the skimmer and filter roller, as well as the operating level for the sump.

Have you chosen a skimmer and taken its height into consideration?

 

[MantisShrimpMan]

Suggestions:

While solvent welding acrylic is not hard, it takes patience and practice and precision. You must consider the glue-up order based several factors from ease to fitment and what/if an error (even small) means for the fitment. This may seem trivial, but until you have wet solvent flowing and things falling, you will not understand. This is another "keep it simple" piece of advice.

I would avoid the dog leg design in the image above. It is unnecessary complication.

Water bubbles popping and splashing will create a lot of salt creep. Keep that in mind. Ease of cleanup is important, as is the configuration of the input area. A "ledge" is somewhere for salt creep to accumulate.

I am not a fan of refugia (I ran various types for years). They need a decent amount of space and a lot more flow than people estimate. They are detritus traps and if not maintained become a mess. If you insist on one, it needs to be very easy to fully clean.

The filter roller and skimmer do not need to be in different compartment. Save the acrylic and the design hassle.

I don't see the benefit in a complicated intake compartment. It adds complexity to the build for no real benefit.

If it were me, I would maximize the return chamber to allow for leeway with evaporation if the auto top-off fails or runs dry, etc.

If you are set on the filter roller and know that you are not going to use filter socks ever, then a small input chamber with a divider wall and bulkhead that feeds the roller will be fine. That separating wall should be lower than the overall sump height in case the filter roller clogs. The exit wall to that section will set the water level height for the skimmer and filter roller, as well as the operating level for the sump.

Have you chosen a skimmer and taken its height into consideration?

I’m gonna respond to all of this later but did you read my full thing? I spoke about skimmer model and addressed baffle height. Seems like you may have missed part of it.

 

[BeanAnimal]

I’m gonna respond to all of this later but did you read my full thing? I spoke about skimmer model and addressed baffle height. Seems like you may have missed part of it.

I may have missed part of it. I like to break down problems one step at a time, in an order of precedence. The first thing that I noticed was the complex shapes in the sump and that, in context to the roller filter drawings from before is where I decided to start with the analysis.

I whole heartedly believe that you are trying to tackle far to many variables at once, causing you to focus on details that may not even be relevant once you settle on prerequisite decisions.

 

[Idech]

If you go with the Tunze 9004 DC skimmer, make sure you have a bubble trap in the sump as these skimmers are known to produce a lot of microbubbles (I have a Tunze 9012 DC). They are good quality and do a good job but those bubbles are very annoying.

Also, if you have big hands, it might be hard for you to clean the cup (unless you use some kind of tool). Mine is bigger and I have medium hands (for a woman) and it’s hard to clean.

Taking it apart for maintenance I find to be kind of a pain also. Maybe watch a video about it (Tunze has one or two on Youtube).

But it does a good job at skimming.

 

[BeanAnimal]

My suggestions above still stand.

10" of water height for the skimmer.

That sets your exit baffle for the chamber at 10". You can set it higher but the skimmer will then need to be elevated onto a pedestal.

Nonetheless, the reef roller will have to have its water level line at 10" as well.

Narrow input area. A few things to consider:
- you need to be able to bet your hand in.
- you need to be able to get a net in. Fish WILL end up there.
- you will want some kind of fish/critter guard on the intake of the rollor, other will go in there.

I would plumb the roller directly to a bulkhead in the intake chamber. I would connect it to the bulkhead with soft silicone tubing.

I would set the exit baffle height AS HIGH as I could get it - still allowing for worst case backflow from the display and headroom for the skimmer and reefmat (they will need to be raised to their target submersion depth.

This will help you maximize sump volume for overall system volume and more evaporation capacity. This will also allow you to drastically simply the sump design to (3) chambers. Intake, filtration, return.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Baffles and bubble traps... narrow traps are useless, the velocity of the water just carries the bubbles through. Traps take a LOT of room to be effective at anything above a low flow sump. Simplifying the sump will allow you to implement an effective bubble trap, be it under, over or under, over, under.

 

[MantisShrimpMan]

@BeanAnimal

I’m still in the process of contemplating much of the advice you’ve already given but in the meantime I could use help with something basic.

Can a single piece of pvc be pushed through such that it protrudes out both sides of the bulkhead? Or is there some sort of bottleneck inside the bulkhead itself that would prevent this, such that you need one piece of tubing to insert from one side and a second piece from the other?

I would assume the latter, but since I’ve never installed or even used a bulkhead before, I’m not sure the answer to this. Also, can you please specify if it is ever the case that SOME bulkheads allow a pipe all the way through and other models don’t, or if it is universally the same?

 

[twentyleagues]

@BeanAnimal

I’m still in the process of contemplating much of the advice you’ve already given but in the meantime I could use help with something basic.

Can a single piece of pvc be pushed through such that it protrudes out both sides of the bulkhead? Or is there some sort of bottleneck inside the bulkhead itself that would prevent this, such that you need one piece of tubing to insert from one side and a second piece from the other?

I would assume the latter, but since I’ve never installed or even used a bulkhead before, I’m not sure the answer to this. Also, can you please specify if it is ever the case that SOME bulkheads allow a pipe all the way through and other models don’t, or if it is universally the same?

most have a "bottleneck" as you said.

 

[BZOFIQ]

Option #2 for me.

This is also required for bean animal type setup for absolutely silent full siphon drain.

 

[MantisShrimpMan]

a bit of an update:

I’ve scrapped the initial tank build plan that led me to all of these questions, in favor of a bigger tank build. With that said, some of these still remain highly relevant.

Looking at picking up a used Red Sea Max S-400. The sump has two filter socks, and according to the Red Sea website at least, it’s not compatible with their reefmats. So I’m looking at instead modifying the sump to support the slimmer form factor of the reef factory filter roller.

The Red Sea max s-400 has a display volume of 97 gallons, and supposedly an overall volume around 110. That puts it pretty close to the maximum possible for the small size of the reef factory roller, and a little bit above the minimum for the medium size. Leaning medium so as to get more time per roll, but curious as to everyone’s thoughts.

 

[MantisShrimpMan]

By the way, on a related note:

I plan on placing the tank in a corner that will make accessing the proprietary Red Sea drain valve difficult or impossible, and also I’ve heard the Red Sea valves aren’t nearly as fine tunable as a proper gate valve, so I’d like to leave it fully open and add a gave valve below it for proper control that can be accessed from the sump compartment instead of from behind the tank.

When I did some googling, I found that ReefDork made a video doing this, but also chose to incorporate a ball valve as well that could serve as an open/closed for times you need to shut off your return pumps but would prefer not to have the water level drop as severely- without affecting your tuned setting on the gate valve. Do you guys think this is a good idea?