best way to build a sump with glass tank

[BobinCovington]

I am toying with the idea of building a sump out of a 29 gallon glass aquarium. I would use 1/4" acrylic for the baffles. Can anyone help with some feed back on designs? I have looked at Melevs reef and there are a lot of good designs there, but none with glass. I only have 14" x 34" of footprint to use for my sump placement.

1) I want to run it remotely in my garage and with tubing running under the house - to and from a 70 to 90 gallon display tank

2) I would like to use my existing skimmer for now (remora adapted to sit in my sump using a maxi-jet 1200)

3) What chambers or sections do I need? (inflow from tank-bubble tower- live rock? - skimmer - refugium -heater -pump out area?) What is the best bullet proof design?

4) What glue should I use to attach acrylic to glass

5) If I to want to run a submerged pump out to the tank (to avoid drilling glass), what is a good pump choice to go vertical 6 feet and horizontal about 20 feet to tank. (for a 5 time turnover rate of 90 gallons = 450gph?)

6) as the alternative, what is a good way to use an external pump with glass? Should I use a PVC intake line over the top of the side of the sump? What is a good pump choice here?

7) Should I put an acrylic cover over any of the chambers to keep dust and other things out?

Sorry for the many questions, but thanks for any suggestions.

 

[Krish]

I know of a website that the guys make sumps using glass fish tanks. I see if I can find it.

 

[Krish]

Here you go...This site has quite a few options of glass fish tanks made sumps. You should be able to find something here. I hope it helps. Good luck
http://www.wetdryfilter.com/special_requests.htm

 

[Blazer88]

I've built two sumps from AGA tanks. I just use aquarium silicon to glue in the baffles and have the baffles cut at Tap Plastics in Bellevue. I have my current one setup with three chambers. First one is return from the tank and houses the skimmer, second chamber is the fuge, and the third is the return pump. Each chamber is split with a bubble trap to eliminate them from getting back into the display. I looked at plumbing an external pump over the sump but ran into some priming issues, so I just use a Mag 9.5 submersed. I also had an acrylic cover cut to keep things from falling in and reduce the salt creep. I'll post some pictures when I get home of what I made last week for my 65G if that will help.

 

[Krish]

Oh, sorry Bob, I was too busy trying to find you the site, I forgot to answer a few of your questions.

Basically anything you see at Marc's site (Melev's Reef) is safe to say, will be bulletproof. He is very good at what he does and was quite nice in helping me when I had one built here in the Bahamas, and ran into a few dead ends. Also, another person who I think could help you alot and is also a very nice and helpful person is Big T (Tom), who is a member of this forum. Working with plexi, acrylic etc and making sumps, overflows etc. is what he does for a living so you might want to get his expert opinion.

On your question about using return pumps, they have quite few options out there. However, where you will be pushing water a total distance of about 26ft, most pumps won't have any flow at that distance unless it is a really big pump. You'll have to check the specs on a number of different pumps to see what their max head is and at how much gph. But IMO, you'll probably end up spending quite a bit of money to get a pump big enough to provide you with the flow you want at your tank.

On the question about using a lid. There is good and bad to using or not using one. Using one may cause a heat issue eventually as it will trap the heat coming from your pumps in your sump which in turn will warm up the water. Using one is helpful though as you won't have as much evaporation and salt creep and also wouldn't have things falling in their by accident that may cause harm to your system. I guess this one is basically a matter of opinion which way you would want to go.

I hope I helped you a bit.

 

[big t]

Here is a diagram that I made up for what I think would be good in a 29g sump. The chamber on the left is where the water input would be as well as the skimmer chamber, then the baffles should take out most any bubbles in the water and finally a chamber on the right that should fit most submersable pumps. A 29 g could also easily be drilled w a dremel tool to accept a bulkhead for a external pump if you wish. As for adding baffles glass would be a good way to go because it sticks a lot better w/ silicone the acrylic does.

 

[BobinCovington]

That sure helps...

question on pumps...what would be a good submersible pump to use?

 

[mungus]

I like mags for submersibles. I never had any problems with them. I have a mag 12 & 7. Some people say the produce to much heat but I never had a problem with heat.

 

[Detri]

BigT there is a mistake in your drawing, it is 14" between the side and the last Baffle. unless the Baffles are 1/4" thick. In that case I am the mistaken one

 

[wave98]

I'm interested to see how this turns out, since I have one to build too. You are getting a lot of good help here already, so I'll just keep following along.

One thing though, your 20 feet of "horizontal run" does not relate directly to "vertical head", only "effective head", and larger pipe reduces a good bit of the potential losses here. Also, "vertical head" is only the difference between the two water levels at the surface, and not "a sum" of vertical travels in the piping, including high or low underwater input or ouputs.

Now that last bit might belong in the "myths" thread. Check advanced "head" calculations from a pump mfg. or other authoritative source. It will save you some money on that "big pump".

Best of luck, and Happy reef keeping! > Wave98

 

[BobinCovington]

So with my approximate head and run of water supply...The Mag pump would work? Which one?

I am pumping water up from the sump approximately 1 foot and then turning 90 degrees and going through a wall and running about 20 feet horizontal under the floor then turning up through the floor and going vertical for 5 feet, then 90 degrees again and flowing through a snap fitting inlet into the tank. I would use some 3/4" diameter tygon tubing I think.

 

[Angelscrx]

Unless you are going to go with a submersible pump I would would stay away from drilling any glass tank. I have seen several glass tanks broken during drilling and my old glass with an acrylic side (because it too broke) came a apart at the seems. Glass and acrylic don't stick together very in my opinion. I just had an acrylic sump made and it looks and works much better.

my2cents.

 

[wave98]

OK, so you have your vertical head at 6' and I would suggest you adapt up to 1" tubing right at the pump, and then back to whatever you need or want at the tank outlet. Do not restrict the flow at the pump outlet. :exclaim:

You'll have to find a good source for accurate "head loss" calculations, I don't have one at my fingertips, and I would go find one if I were doing this myself. Someone will chime in here shortly and you will be all set. My "ballpark" guess, would be about 20% to 30% for the "horizontal" run, and the angle ( or elbow ) losses. Don't forget to include your "outlet nozzle" if any.

Every pump has it's own "head-flow" ratings, and you can modify a prospective pumps rating at your 6' head with the above, and there you are.

Now, it would be prudent to add about 15-20% more capacity still, on top of this, to account for degraded pump performance over time as well as "imperfect head calculations". You can always "dump" some portion of this flow directly back to the sump with a good ball or gate valve, if you want to be accurate, and you should test your flow with the "time to fill bucket" method if you are trying to do so.

Please use good clamps on this tubing. You will be happier a year from now, if you buy a good quality pump, and then your system is still "perfect".

Hope this helps. > Wave98

 

[DonW]

Thats a pretty long run and I assume you dont have the display running yet. I would use a know to run cool external pump. I like the genx pcx40 others may have different opinions, but I'd go external.
Is there a reason you are using glass and not acrylic??

Don

 

[BobinCovington]

Just thinking that glass might be a less expensive and easier to clean option.

 

[Krish]

I had my sump built out of plexi glass and it costed me $200.00. Now that may seem expensive, but you got to think about the fact that we have to pay heavy shipping and customs duty (up 75% in most cases) to get things here in the Bahamas and then you've got the companies mark up and then labor charges. So if you were to work that out, you should be able to get something custom built pretty cheap. With that, you wouldn't have to worry about drilling glass (if that is what you are afraid of).

The mag drive pumps are good. I've always used them. The LFS set up a filtration system using a mag24 (2400 gph) and it's plumbing was approximately 6ft up, then a 90, then about another 6ft to the first "T", and then it ran completely around a custom plastic pond that was 10ft by 5ft. In total there were 6 exits and the pump produced great flow. Maybe that would give you and idea of what you would be working with. They also make a 3600 gph pump and they are relatively cheap.

 

[wave98]

Acrylic really seems like the way to go for sumps, and most times for refugiuims as well. If it's your existing 29 gal. that you are trying to get some good out of, you might want to consider it for a species tank, which can be fun, or a quarantine tank is handy to have available. :idea:

Why do you want to run it in the garage? You'll need to be careful with that antique refinishing you were thinking about, or whatever else goes on out there.

Why the 14" X 34" footprint anyway? How about under your new 90 gal. stand? That would put you back in touch with Mark at Melevsreef, and or BigT. Lots of help available from these sources! :idea:

Just throwing out some thoughts here. I started out looking at glass for a "sump-refugium", but decided on acrylic after a lot of checking into it. Glass just kept causing more problems to solve, and "custom" to your needs, is pretty easy in acrylic.

Hope this helps a bit. Good luck with your 90 gal.; You are going for the big one, right?! > Wave98

 

[bc_slc]

If you are going to run it out to the garage, I would consider upsizing to a bigger tank/sump. You won't regret the extra size. No matter how big, you will find a way to fill up the sump with a bunch of crap and use up all the space, but starting at 29gal will limit you quite a bit. Your decision to try and convert a used tank is a good one, I converted my old 55 gal tank by inserting a bunch of glass cut to size as baffles and love it. I would keep my eye out for a used tank (glass or acrylic) that is a bit larger.

 

[Krish]

bc slc has a good point there on going with a bigger sump if it is going in the garage. Another reason why is the more water you have in your system the better for stability. Even if you just use the sump space for water. Just because it is big doesn't mean you have to pack it up to capacity. More water means less chance of something going wrong (like a dead fish undetected, a light left on too long which may heat up the water, accidentally spilling something toxic in the water just to name a few) This wouldn't have as much affect on a system with say has 200 gallons of water compared to one with 75 gals. Someone's got it right with their signature on the forum (sorry I forgot who's...My brain isn't working well right now(LOL)) saying "Dilution is the solution to pollution". So if it is in your budget and you can do it...Add a bigger sump or even get a big 55 gal drum and plum it in for extra water...I mean if I had a garage to put my filtration system in, I'd get as much plastic drums as I can fit to add some more gallons to my system(LOL)

 

[BobinCovington]

Well it might be hard to picture, but here goes...

I am somewhat limited on space and the garage is about 18" lower than the floor of the house. I have already built a "reef workbench" along one wall in my small garage with a 18"x36" shelving unit. I installed the middle shelf and put under cabinet lighting above it for a nice area to do my testing (complete with a magnetic stirring unit and small beakers for testing calcium and alkalinity). I have a little half shelf above to store my refractometer and one of those plastic bin systems to store razor blades, power head parts, scrapers, test kits, filter bags, Rowaphos, etc. The very top shelf holds all of my buckets, siphon and a plastic carboy to do water changes out of the main tank. This leaves the bottom area which is 36"x18"x36"H reserved for my sump and pump.

I have made two wood frames (one goes under the shelving unit to hold the sump and one next to it for top-off water and salt water mixing). They each are 36"x18" and have some fiberglass grating with a pan underneath so that if anything spills over or leaks it goes to the drain. So under the shelves is the sump area and directly to the right of it is the other spill containment plate with a 15 gallon F/W tank and a 15 gallon S/W mixing tank (with room for a Kalk Reactor someday soon).

I still have lots of work ahead of me, but my goal is to make my aquarium testing, water changes, electrical and top off processes much better. I probably should use plexi for the sump. Eventually, I'd like to have it working so I can pump out salt water with just a button and then pump in some new salt water to do my water changes. I will also be able to take a sample of tank salt water and new salt water from the work bench area (building a small water sample faucet and drain on one small area of bench).

The main display tank is only a 29 right now, but the hope there is to put in a 92 gallon corner tank by first part of next year.

So in a long winded answer, I only have that bottom area under the shelf to work with for this sump if I want to centralize all of the aquarium functions.

As I get further along, I will take some pictures to post.

(phew, that was longwinded)