# Canister to sump



## idris (23 Mar 2018)

After talking to soneone at my LFS (another customer) I am wondering about swapping my canister filter for a sump filter on my 250L tropical tank.

Q1. What are the pros and cons of sump filters?

Q2. Everthing I can find on sumps is for marine tanks, which usually seem to have wiers built into them. Is there any reason not to use the same pipework for a sump as I curruently have for my canister filter?


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## Edvet (23 Mar 2018)

_f you have a planted tank, there is no benefit in a sump other than hiding the equipment. Your plants and soil are your biggest filters. The filter is used mostly for flow and some cleaning
In an unplanted tank with heavy fishload a sump is the way to go, superior filtering capacity. This way you can support larger fishloads in a safer way._


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## idris (23 Mar 2018)

The guy I was talking to seemed to think cleaning filter media was a lot easier.
Are there any disadvantages to a sump?


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## Tim Harrison (23 Mar 2018)

Off gassing CO2.


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## idris (23 Mar 2018)

I don' add co2.


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## foxfish (23 Mar 2018)

Noise, evaporation, flooding the room, running the pump dry, drilling holes in tank, cost, accessibility.....
Yeah, I love them myself but you do need to understand how it all works to avoid any potential issues.
Try googling 'sumps UKAPS' hundreds of post on the forum.


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## Edvet (23 Mar 2018)

Basically you can run your filter with some coarse filterfoam pads,  rinse them once every few months. Not that hard, if you want you can make a filterfoam prefilter and only rinse that once every now and then, and just clean the filter once a year. Takes me longer to clean my sump, but i designed the tank for a plantfree Discus biotope tank.


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## Kezzab (23 Mar 2018)

https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/stig-of-the-sump.48558/
My dumped tank.

It's quite fun. Lots of space for stuff. Experiments. Extra water volume. Not noisy. All good.


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## Fisher2007 (25 Mar 2018)

Just on the basics of sumps.  You need to think about what happens in the event of a power cut or return pump failure.  If you're using the external existing pipework the display tank would back siphon, lowering your main tank massively and overflowing your sump.  There are ways round a weir, such as an overflow box, but they aren't great

Having run a marine system with a sump for many years my advice would 100% be if you want a sump do it properly and get a display tank with a weir fitted


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## zozo (25 Mar 2018)

It has no real disadvanteges, tho it's a DIY thing.. Design flaws, if they have, are the disadvantage.. Such as sump flooding or tank flooding are some absolute unnecessary design flaws in miscalculating some volumes.
Simple diagram for simple flood prevention.



 

The major difference between sump ad canister.. A sump drains water via an overflow, it solely skims the surface.
By doing only that there will more fine debri collected on and in the substrate. Anything to heavy to float doesn't end up into the filter and stays in the tank.

With a canister the intake is submersed, this takes in more debri.

It's depending on your stocking numbers how much debri the substrate will collect. But with a sump you need to monitor this a bit more closely.


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## idris (27 Mar 2018)

Whilst I do like the idea, and I'm sure it's possible to design downsides out of a system, I think on balance it's more hassle than it's worth at the moment.
At least that's not another "project" on my list.


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## zozo (27 Mar 2018)

idris said:


> I think on balance it's more hassle than it's worth



That depends where you place the term hassle and worth?  Building your first sump and make it work flawlesly can indeed be a bit of a hassle. Especialy for the people overthinking and overcomplicating the sumps design with unecessary bells and wissles.. It doesn't make it a beter filter. A sump can be (should be) equaly KISS and fool proof as is a canister.

Sumps are mainly build by people with large tanks.. Over 2 years ago i took the challange to build a small one from a 25 litre standard eurobraced aquarium from the LFS. Cost €15

Used €15, 4mm acrylic sheet material. (Actualy only half of the sheet i bought)

Pump is not a fixed piece of hardware, you choose what to place in it.
a €29.95 pump

And a €20 PVC materials to create a proper drain system.

It hold over 5 litre Biomedia and some sponge material, nothing fancy.. But volume wise it could easily filter an aquarium up to 500 litre.

Total sum
+/- €80,- for the complete setup. Didn't add the media because a cannister contains about the same. But in case add a €20 extra.

Try to buy a completely ready to run canister for a 500 litre tank for around €100. I guess you have to search a very long time to find it.. 
Actualy this sump runs a 110 litre tank at the moment.. And i couldn't find a cheaper canister for that either. That's worth something

But honnestly i must say as a first time DIY project not realy knowing what i was into. It took me a while, some experimenting and hassle to realise that Keep It Simple Stupid is the best way to go. Once you know/realise that, every sump build there after is a laugh. That's worth something as well..


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## Oldguy (30 Aug 2018)

I had a sump under a 8ft display tank. This was drilled with twin overflows into a sump with pump. Output from pump was divided into spray bar over dry/wet trickle filter in the sump and the return to the display tank. Sump was drilled fairy high up with overflow through house wall onto garden path. The display tank ran other filters that were independent of the sump. On power cut sump filled and a little water ran onto garden path, power on and sump ran low. Lazy water change, pump water into display tank and waist ran to garden via sump. Gravel vacing, pump  water into sump and siphon water from display tank through hose, through window onto garden. Wish present tank in current house was as simple.


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