Sump Upgrade / Redesign?

[jagillham]

Firstly, my sump and I have had a turbulent relationship.

A "cheap tank" purchased years back 2nd hand, leaked from the day I got it! I doubled up the bottom panel with perspex, which fixed that. Some time later I pulled it away from the wall without unhooking the overflow, and left half the back panel behind! More perspex later, fixed that up. Few more leaks along the way, and now I've yet another!

I didn't partially want to have the hassle of redoing all the chambers again, but wondering if I should. For now, I've purchased a marginally bigger tank with the idea of just whole old one in it. That was the 'effing thing can leak all it wants without getting my cupboard wet!

New sump tank is around 90l (on a 450l tank)... can one 'over sump' ?

Current design (by chamber) is Filter Sock -> Coarse Foam -> Coarse Form -> Fine Foam -> Fine Foam -> Return Pump . Sometimes running floss in the top of the 2nd to last chamber.

Keep / redo / other?

 

[Edvet]

I like sumps.
Just: in a planted tank they have less use, as there is a lot of bacterial capacity on the plants and roots and bottom of the tank already. It will add to the tank volume wich will increase stability.
If you can use your sump to hide hardware that will improve your tank by taking clutter out, possibly could give more possibilities to improve flow and improve removal of dirt.
Sumps will eat CO2 unless you plan around it ( minimise "falldamage").
I realy like driptower constructions, these improve oxygen levels in the filter compartiment and thus their cleaning ability.
So in conclusion sumps can be wonderfull but also troublesome. . It all depends on what you think important

 

[Andrew Butler]

My thoughts on sumps in a planted tanks:

As @Edvet says CO2, people report getting around that by using lids on them but never had a sumped planted tank. The American forums might be a better place to research.
In a sump you could use a reactor run on a separate pump which I'm sure is a more efficient way to dissolve that CO2 in the first place.

I also agree with Edvet about hiding hardware; add dosing, heating and ATO to that list - always a few extras out of the way too.
If you wanted to run something like Carbon then you can do that in a simple fluidised media reactor.

Inline heaters I'm not such a big fan of as I was, with a sump you can add a couple of titanium heaters on a controller then if one goes wrong the other is there as a fail-safe which is an extra reassurance.

Reading back over things I think the whole question really is should you try and repair the battered sump you have or just buy a new one isn't it?
In my opinion; buy a new one.

 

[zozo]

. can one 'over sump' ?

For a planted tank..?
Yes and No..

Regarding filter capacity, size or volume it never can hurt or be bad.. Thus No!?

Regarding design complexity, alledgedly making it 10 x better than sufficient with bells and wissles. Thus Yes!? Than your sump is over sufficient.

That is the question to think about: Can one be better than sufficient? And is all that in extra added sufficiency, that in reality doesn't do verry much, worth the money and effort to put in. Having it all, but it never will be used..

Like buying your wife a Ferrari for shopping car and she never leaves the 15m/h neighbourhood with it..

 

[jagillham]

Thanks all, I suppose the ramble / question was if my current sump set up was OK filtration wise. If it was... then I'm not seeing any major disadvantage to keeping the sump within the larger tank.

What it would mean is in the event of a 'filter off' moment, I can probably have it drain back into the sump without overflowing, which then means it works properly when the power is back on.

Only thing I'd need to do really is drill a couple small holes in the inner sump so the water in the outer one drains back out.

Will be keeping heater, dosing and maybe CO2 in the sump

 

[Daveslaney]

Having never run a sump is the main co2 loss through the hang on overflows? Is the co2 loss still the same with a drilled tank/ intank overflow?