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My new sump

DavidW

DavidW

Member
Joined
1 Jul 2016
Messages
327
Location
East Sussex
My current sump was working well until I had a power cut and subsequently flooded lounge :oops: my other half was less that impressed the first time it happened and I wont repeat the barrage I got the second time.

So I've been working on a new sump design for my tank that wont flood in a power cut. After putting some designs together I got in contact with a company that make acrylic sumps and they built it for me.

It arrives on Thursday here are some pictures

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Mark Allen said:
I bet that wasnt cheap?!
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Cheaper than you might think. I priced up getting the acrylic myself and acrylic weld and it wasn't that much more than buying everything myself. Then when you add on piece of mind as is built by professional sump builders and time it would have taken me I very happy with the price.

ian_m said:
Cheaper than new carpets/floor in the lounge and priceless to prevent an ear bending from other half....
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Yep I'd pay anything to stop the ear bending lol :D
 
Out of curiosity is this acrylic company in the UK and any links? I had a glass lid custom made for my tank with cut outs for the pipe work. Very scary stuff when I remove it, its 6mm glass and quite heavy, already made contact with the rim of the tank once which caused a very small chip, luckily I can hide it with one of the clips that the lid sits on but every time I take the lid off it I fear I will hit the tank full on at some point and take a chunk out my tank. I was considering getting an acrylic lid custom built which should be a bit safer. Maybe these are the people to do it.
 
Thanks Ian, I'll send them my specifications and get a quote. Looking at the complexity of these sumps I reckon my lid will be an easy job for them. Just wish I had thought of this before clunking my ada 60h :D
 
If you just want plastic sheet cut, many people sell cut acrylic on-line.

You can get it cut, edges flame polished for not very much.

I think people use 6mm for tank lids as 4mm has a tendency to bow after a while. You can also solvent weld on small handles to allow easier lid removal.
 
Do these people make cut outs? I have two in the back edge of the panel to accommodate my inlet and outlet pipes. I guess these could be done with a coping saw but a CNC machine would make a far neater job.
 
Great looking sump! Almost what I have in mind for my own. I'm wondering if you will be only using socks for mechanical filtration? Any pics with the wet dry media? How big is the wet dry container? How big of a water flow do you need to let the water
hit all of the distribution plate?
 
Once I install the sump I'll be able to answer some of your questions but I'm currently only planning on using the filter socks. In my current sump I use eheim mech pro and filter foam, I find the flow starts off well but after a few days slows as the foam get dirty so I take the foam which is a bit of a pain and causes some of what the foam has caught to seep out into the rest of the sump. With filter socks I'll probably need to change them once a day but there quick and easy to change and wont seep anything into the rest of the sump. At least that's what I'm hoping.

I'll be using Seachem matrix at the top of the drip tower, then bio balls. the total area of my drip tower is about 14.5 litres (28.4 x 17 x 30). I plan on running my return pump at 2500lph, I will be pitting some filter wool at the top of the drip tower to ensure the water hits all parts of the drip tower.

The sump was made to my specifications, if your looking for a different size of sump or compartments or further info on sumps drop Chris at Atomic Reactor an email. He's really helpful and knowledgeable.
 
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