Hey guys, I have been wanting to increase my sump volume by building my own sump rather than using a stock tank. This is so I can maximize my water volume and space under my tank. I made a tool to help do the calculations of water volume and heights based on all of the chamber sizes of a standard layout sump, including specifics of the display tank and overflow sizes. This assumes all of the water from the overflow box drains to the sump as worst case scenario. It has helped me quite a bit from making mistakes on my calculator and makes it much faster and simpler to change values. Can quickly change baffle sizes and locations to maximize space and volumes.
It is a little rough, but if you have any questions or input on it, let me know and i will try and update it. The green cells are the inputs, and the rest are calculated values. I tried to add some notes to what each of the values are, but I will gladly try and explain in further detail. This seems to be a step that I see people struggle with or ignore, which usually leads to wasted space, or even worse flooding. note there is a conditional cell in there for if the chamber sizes do not match the length of the tank. The sheet sort of assumes you know how much water is going to back syphon to the sump based on when the return nozzles break their syphon. I have a good idea where my nozzles stop, so that helped me a lot. the cartoon of the sump does not scale with sizes, it just shows the actual dimensions. It also gives you a glass size cut list, I like .125 inch of clearance when i set my baffles, so that is why those dimensions are slightly smaller than the actual inside width of the tank.
I know its pretty easy math, but i figured i would share. Hope it helps somebody. And PLEASE, if you find any errors in the spreadsheet, let me know. This is a just theoretical tool, so take it for what it is worth.
It is a little rough, but if you have any questions or input on it, let me know and i will try and update it. The green cells are the inputs, and the rest are calculated values. I tried to add some notes to what each of the values are, but I will gladly try and explain in further detail. This seems to be a step that I see people struggle with or ignore, which usually leads to wasted space, or even worse flooding. note there is a conditional cell in there for if the chamber sizes do not match the length of the tank. The sheet sort of assumes you know how much water is going to back syphon to the sump based on when the return nozzles break their syphon. I have a good idea where my nozzles stop, so that helped me a lot. the cartoon of the sump does not scale with sizes, it just shows the actual dimensions. It also gives you a glass size cut list, I like .125 inch of clearance when i set my baffles, so that is why those dimensions are slightly smaller than the actual inside width of the tank.
I know its pretty easy math, but i figured i would share. Hope it helps somebody. And PLEASE, if you find any errors in the spreadsheet, let me know. This is a just theoretical tool, so take it for what it is worth.
