Tips for setting up the perfect sump

[Wolf6]

Big shrimp shouldn't get through or in the overflow in the first place... But i have to admit, shrimp are adventures climbers i've also found them in my HOB filters traveling emersed over the media into the pump compartiment playing in the eddy munching on the sponge. Shrimps are definitively mad.

This guy must have been suicidal, climbing over 5 cm of comb above waterline (total comb was about 6 or 7 cm) to get there.

 

[MattC]

Setting up a sumped tank with a refugium shortly. I was intending on lighting counter to main tank and primarily using salvinia natans - so I won’t need messy substrate and can keep / harvest shrimp, daphnia etc beneath. I’ve reset the baffles in the sump so flow will be beneath the surface. Having run sumps before I’ve found the same principles for the mechanical section of a canister still apply - coarse sponge first running to finer sponge then fine matting. I just wedged it between the baffles then rinsed the sponges and discarded the matting each water change. Great tips re the mesh on the overflow incidentally. Another really useful one I’ve heard is to string fishing line just beneath the surface in front of the weir using a couple of sucker cups - it then allows any surface scum to pass off but any floating plant roots will snag. Probably also worth meshing the top of the weir as well as the combs to stop jumpers and snails etc. Chap on eBay was selling 4kg of eheim sintered glass media for £20 which is dirt cheap. Can stick a link up if anyone interested.

 

[not called Bob]

certainly sounds cheap, pre loved or new?