Dual 20 Long Custom Sump Build Log

S

Serk

This build is NOT gonna go fast, as I'm just too busy with other stuff, but figured I'd go ahead and start a build log with what I've got in mind and what I've done so far.

My system currently has 7 tanks, with around 250 gallons of total system volume, all fed form a single 20 gallon long tank acting as the sump.

The only baffles in this sump are pieces of acrylic loosely wedged into place.

It's server me well overall, but especially with the recent additions of the 55g refuguim and the 20 gallon anemone tank, when the power goes out, the sump can't handle it all. I overflow 3-4 gallons of water everytime the pumps go out, and that just can't be left alone, I've gotta fix it.

So... If I were smart I'd just pay Marc or someone else to build me a custom sump for my needs... But what fun is that??? I'll end up spending more than it would have cost to have a professional one made, and have far more headaches, but... Well... I like this kinda stuff!

My stand has drawers, which sounds nice, but it restricts the height of items I can put UNDER the tank severely (Under 24 inches, can't recall the exact measurement off the top of my head).

Also, my stand has a non-removable supporting brace right in the middle, making it impossible for me to insert a single large sump.

So, now that I've learned the wonders of diamond-tipped drill bits, my plan is to get two 20 gallon long tanks, drill three holes in the ends of both of them (Matched up, of course) and put 3 1" bulkheads/unions between the two tanks...

Admittedly, I haven't done the math, but this should be more than enough for the flow I send through my systems.

I'm planning to have the tank returns all dump into the far right portion of the right hand sump-tank, putting numerous baffles, my skimmer, etc all in the right hand tank. The left hand tank will basically be just a big buffer, with minimal water in it while the system is running. It will include the return pumps at the far left part.

Here's a VERY crude drawing of what I'm planning to do. Disclaimer, I am neither an artist, nor an engineer!


Sump-Design.png
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Oops.....

Well, on the bright side I think I've got my technique down pat for drilling holes in glass... The part I was missing in the past is to take a piece of scrap wood and hold it against the glass on the side opposite where you're drilling. This keeps the last bit from ripping through and chipping the edge as it breaks through.

On the negative side, I'd intended to drill the holes in the side of the tank with 2 holes on the bottom side by side, and an over-flow single hole near the top of the tank in the middle. However, as I was drilling the third hole, I noticed I'd had some mental flatulance, and drilled two holes near the TOP and a single hole in the center near the bottom...

No biggie, just hafta think things through a little better... Anyway, the first 20 gallon tank has been drilled. Now I need to acquire the other 20 gallon long tank. Was hoping someone else would have one sitting in a closet somewhere (Thanks again LovelyPona!) but looking like I might hafta actually go to a LFS and buy a new tank to finish this out.

Also planning on finding that glass place in Allen to have some custom baffles made. But that's still down the road a bit...
 
Interesting design, Serk.. the hardest part of doing a two-part sump is the union between them.

I assume you want to be able to take them apart, and be able to take the bulkheads out. You obviously want all three bh->?<-bh sections to be the same length so that you don't crack the glass or create a leak when joined and tightened.

The simplest thing to do to join them would be to glue a section of PVC pipe between them, but obviously that's permanent. Unions would let you take the sections apart, but the bulkhead ring may not fit over the unions.

What I would suggest is to get fpt x fpt bulkheads and get some sch 80 double threaded inserts to join them, and use copious amounts of teflon tape. That way you could tweak the overal length by giving each section a twist clockwise or counter-clockwise.

In my two-part sump, I couldn't get my hands on 2" bulkheads that were fpt x fpt, so I had to do something different.
 
Scott - My current thoughts are this -

Use 1" unions, but install the bulkheads inside-out, so that the "long" part of the bulkhead is in the tank, and the "Stubby" part of the bulkhead is external (Keeping the gasket on the wet side, of course).

Not sure if this will work or not, just planning on hooking it up and testing it in the back yard before installing anything.

If that doesn't work, I'll just install the bulkheads normally, and use 1.75 inch pieces of PVC connecting the bulkheads to the union bits. (Since the bits that go into fittings are usually 1" (At least the ones I've dealt with have been) this should still give me a good seal, and make sure the unions are flush against the bulkheads, if that makes sense...
 
Lol, my 'something different' is exactly what you just described.. I used short sch80 threaded pieces between the bulkheads turned the wrong way..

The only thing you have to do if you're going to do this is liberally grease the gaskets so that you can tighten the nuts down.
 
Chuck, I might hafta do that... My theory was the micro bubbles would be beat outta the system before the water hit the 2nd sump, but that might be some good insurance against having bubbles...

I just need to be careful with any baffles in the 2nd sump, since it's main purpose in life is space to hold back-flow when the power goes out/pump fails/whatever...

Thanks for the input!!!
 
You don't need the baffles on the skimmer side at all.

On the return pump side just put 2 sets of baffles the height you want to keep the water in the skimmer side. You could put only 1 set but from your drawing I can tell you are worried about micro bubbles so go 2. There are alot more option but it would be easier to explain over the phone.

On your 1 lines that go between the 2 tanks put the skimmer side lower than the pump side. When I mean lower I only mean 1/2". Put spa flex betwwen them. Keep them close to the bottom of the tank and not higher than the baffles. By putting one the skimmer side lower than the pump side you will never have the problem of air getting traped in the tubes. If you get them completly submerged you will also not have to worry about a flow issue between the 2 tanks.

You don't need to have that last baffle by the pumps either.

If you make the baffles as close together as possible and put a nice light over the pump side with an auto top off you will have also made your self a propogation section.
 
Can you post some dimensions of the sumps themselves, as well as the Length & Width of each display tank? Let's figure out the volume of water that drains for all tanks, so we can determine the total volume your sump must hold to avoid a flood.
 
@Marc wrote:
Can you post some dimensions of the sumps themselves said:
The current sump is a single 20 gallon long aquarium - 30x12x12

My tanks are:

150 gallon - 72x25x25
55 gallon - 48x13x20
20 long - 30x12x12
4 x 5 gallon fuges that are a funky hexagon shape

Some other things - I need to oversize the sump back flow volume since I'm not done adding tanks to the system... :)

Also, for some funny reason I don't think I'll need a refuguim built into my sump :) although a prop section might be nice...
Click to expand...
 
The 20g long holds 1.5g of water for every inch it fills up.

The 150g will drain 7.8g if 1" pours out.
The 55g will drain 2.7g if 1" pours out.
The 20g will drain 1.5g if 1" pours out.
The four 5g refugiums will drain x amount if 1" drains out. (Take the height of the Hex tank and divide that into 5g to figure out how much 1" contains).

Basically, if all your tanks drain 1", we need to make sure the sump can hold the combined water. Currently, it appears your sump needs to hold 12 (plus the 4 hex tanks' worth of drain off) gallons of extra water.

I would strongly recommend a large sump with such a combined system. Use every inch you can squeeze in there. Is this one going under the 150g hopefully?
 
@Marc wrote:
I would strongly recommend a large sump with such a combined system. Use every inch you can squeeze in there. Is this one going under the 150g hopefully? said:
Yeah, it's going under the 150, replacing the current "sump"... I'll hafta get down and take some measurements, but the vertical space is highly limited under there. (The idea of drawers in the stand SEEMED like a good idea when I was first setting this all up!) The front to back space is roughly 24 inches, and side to side is around 70 inches, but I need to keep some side-to-side space for my topoff container.

Considering my current sump is a 20 gallon long, that I normally run at about 50% full, and when the pumps go out I overflow 3-4 gallons of water over the top off the sump, meaning I'm currently overflowing around 13-14 gallons, which is why my initial plan was to basically use my current sump as it is, only redo it with properly siliconed glass baffles, and add a 2nd 20 long as nothing but overflow space...
Click to expand...
 
Why don't you cut a hole in the end of the stand like I did in Lindsey's, to slide in a solid one-piece sump? http://melevsreef.com/install_sump.html

Having a prop section is somewhat plausible, but it won't be much area to work with. Mine is in the return section, but that section is large.
 
Yeah, I thought of the cut-the-stand idea when that was first done, but I'd be too afraid of my stand not maintaining long-term structural integrity if I were to cut that bit of a hole in the end of it...

The prop section isn't really necessary in the sump, as my next "Fun" project I keep toying with is adding a 30 or so gallon tank to the right of the 150 and setting it up as a non-hidden prop tank... Yeah, I'm sick, I know it... :)

(Oh yeah, and I assume the comment in the recent Reefcast about the guy with all the fuge's was me? Just FYI, the 4 5 gallons are above the display, water is pumped up to them, and gravity fed back directly into the display, not the sump.)
 
Yep, yer the one. If I'd had a handy picture, I'd have put it in the show notes. Did you guess for the contest yet? If not, send it in soon.
 
@Marc wrote:
Yep said:
DoH! Shoulda PM'ed me, I'm a geek, and geeks are egomaniacs by nature! I woulda even cleaned up the shelf and taken a pic for ya'! :)

And yeah, sent in my guess today... I even toyed with the idea of sending in a late intro-contest entry just to shut Evan up about it, but my audio-editing days were well over a decade ago.....
Click to expand...
 
@Serk wrote:
Yeah said:
I think you should put a 48 x 16 x 16 sump in there to do what you need. If you can, get a piece of cardboard that is 48 x 16, and navigate it in like a pizza (flat!) to see if you can fit it into the stand. Because your stand is 24" front to back, you may be able to pivot it in. That size sump holds 50g.

Adding a secondary 20g tank wouldn't be empty to hold the overflow as you described, because it will always have some water in the bottom based on the type of pump you use and the baffles you glue in. Hence, you'll have less room volume-wise. Maybe 80% left, maybe less.
Click to expand...
 
Reviving this ancient thread... I've convinced the spousal unit/accountant that I don't have enough aquariums, and have been green lighted to add another one to that empty space to the right of the main display. (The new one will be a prop tank, FYI)...

So, with that in mind, increasing my sump space went up in priority, since I'm flooding about 3 gallons whenever the pumps cut off now, that'll only get worse with another tank in place.

The main problem I had with my earlier scheme was getting multiple holes drilled to all line up, so in lieu of that, I decided to just go with 1 big hole. Using the club's 65mm diamond tipped drill bit (I checked it out to myself :wink: ) makes a hole the right size for a 1.5" PVC bulkhead, and it wasn't too hard to drill two holes that lined up.

So, I've acquired 2 20g long tanks, drilled 'em and made sure the bulkheads line up. I also picked up some acrylic and the weather stripping to make movable baffles. Still need to get some 1.5" PVC though, but I'm gonna hafta redo a good chunk of my plumbing anyway, so I'm working up a list of plumbing bits and bobs before I go shopping before I do the actual cutover...

Anyway... Here's a general layout of how I plan on doing the sumps (Man, I'm so loving Google SketchUp!)

New_Sump.png
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The water will come into the sump via the pipes on the right, the box in the section after that are my skimmer and it's pump. There will be a union fitting on the PVC between the two tanks so they can be removed. The boxes on the far left are the return pumps, obviously.

Yeah, lot of open empty space, but that's my goal, I want enough back-flow room so that the system doesn't flood anymore after a power outage...

So... Any major "Dang Serk's an idiot!"'s ya'll see in there?
 
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