Who here uses a sump?

[Mugwump]

Do you use it on one tank, or a system type set up?.....how large is the sump...??

[P4Angels]

We have a 30 gallon sump on 2 55 gallon tank...   I also run a alga scrubber on the tank via the sump

[Mugwump]

Interesting....thanks for the reply...

[JR]

I use A Eshpps Refugium R300 36x16x16 On my salt water tanks. Going to see how it will do on my 125 gal Discus tank that I am working on setting up.

[BillT]

I have a sump serving two racks of small aquaria on lab racks, another sump on another lab rack for babies kept at an elevated salt level 
(10,500 micro-Siemans), a sump on a water system I put together for a bunch of larger freshwater tanks. Quarantine tanks are on an intermittant flow through system which basically is just an automatic water changer.

The sump systems for me provide filtration, pumping, UV, heater, water level and salinity control, and carbonate addition.

My sumps are between 20 and 60 G. they have overflows to floor drains, and automatic float valve filling.

For me, important considerations in sump size include:
- unless plumbed to a drain, the sump should be able to hold all the water that will flow to the sump when the pump is turned off. This is usually the volume of the water in the pipes plus the volume of water in the tanks above the lowest level of the overflow.

- The sump should also contain enough water so that after a pumps turns off and the water in pipes etc. drain to the sump. The pump can be started up again and refill all the pipes so that the system can easily return to normal functioning.
If there is a sump overflow drain, water will be lost from the system. When the pump is turned on, the water level in the sump may drop so much that either the pump may start sucking in air (can lead to gas super-saturation), or if the pump is protected with a low water level shut-off switch, the pump may turn off before the pipes all get filled and things can get back to normal.

- room for the various things you want to locate there. This usually increases for me as time goes on and I later want a larger sump.

- easy access to these things is an additional issue.

[Mugwump]

Thanks gang, I have a little idea about them but wanted to see what else was running out there. If I do set one up, it'll be on a 110 gal. I want to convert it for a good grow out tank.