+FluxCapacitor Posted February 6, 2017 Share Posted February 6, 2017 Hello everyone, I know I haven't been posting much lately. I've been pretty busy with work as I'm sure many of you all are. I've finally gotten around to making a sump to supplement the 14G cube we bought back in April of 2016. I just wanted to share a picture and some thoughts on the build. The left side will house the water pump and a minimax biopellet reactor. The next section is going to have some sort of media basket hacked together out of eggcrate/light diffuser. The largest section 2nd from the right is where I've already put some black sand and will put the chaeto for a refugium. The section on the far right will be where the water drains from the main tank. If the skimmer will fit there I'll also put it there, otherwise it's going in the refugium section. I'm also going to put the ATO sensor/fill tube in one of these areas. In my large sump this is in the water drain section of the sump where water comes from the Display Tank. The silicone looks like dookie but it holds just fine. I used some plexiglass sheets from home depot that cost about $4.50 each against the advice of the all knowing internets. You're apparently not supposed to silicone glass to plastic, but I did anyway and it held water just fine when I tested it last night. None of the chambers leaked. Some considerations I'd like to address are that this is going to be sitting on the night stand and it will have a very bright purple tinted refugium light on it at night time. I want to figure out the best way to shield this light so that it doesn't beam the whole room while I'm trying to sleep. It may not be doable but my initial idea to minimize this is to figure out a way to get the light as close to the water as possible to minimize how much of it goes out into the room. I want to avoid painting more than just the back panel black. The reason I decided to set up such a small sump is because the room for filtration equipment in the 14G cube is not much. Currently there is only some live rock and a skimmer in the "sump" area of the tank that is separated from the rest of the display. This will also slightly increase the water volume and hopefully make the maintenance of the equipment a bit easier as it will be more accessible without disturbing the main tank. Anyway, this is what I did over the weekend, it's nothing fancy but it will get the job done for the time being. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jolt Posted February 6, 2017 Share Posted February 6, 2017 I'll bet you will be fine with the plexi since it's such a small sump. The pressure on the joints will be so small ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+FluxCapacitor Posted February 7, 2017 Author Share Posted February 7, 2017 ^^ My thoughts exactly. There isn't enough water in there to exert a lot of pressure on it. I filled the chambers separately and they held water without leaking 12h after the silicone was put in place. I know some will think this is overkill but I found a retailer on Amazon that had 2 Mame Overflows left in stock. I ordered one and it just arrived today. The quality of it is very nice and I look forward to using it in the small tank we have on our night stand. Silicone tubing in 1" ID costs a freaking fortune. $8.99 per foot on BRS. I only need about 3' I think but still that cost is crazy for tubing. I'm going to replace the vinyl sections of tube on the Mame Overflow with silicone because it will be easier to take apart when the time is right. I'll be sure to post some more pictures of the completed setup so that anyone else looking to do something similar will be able to get some ideas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlexMorsePremium Posted February 7, 2017 Share Posted February 7, 2017 Looks good! I'm curious how it turns out for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HarleyGuy Posted February 8, 2017 Share Posted February 8, 2017 I've done this on a bigger scale - looks good. Post some pics when its in service. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+FluxCapacitor Posted February 11, 2017 Author Share Posted February 11, 2017 I assembled everything last night. The light diffuser is to keep the clown fish from jumping because one time the female jumped over into the small sump area on the cube. I'm glad that's the direction she went rather than one of the other 3 walls that would have put her on the floor. Lucky! I have a custom lid on order from Artfully Acrylic to replace the diffuser because I liked the one I got from them for my 34G tank so much. This brand was at Reburn's suggestion and seeing his at his home convinced me that they were nice lids. Anyway, I ended up going w/ two pumps. The main pump in the cube is staying where it is to maintain circulation through the area in the rear of the cube where the skimmer still resides. I couldn't figure out a way to get it to work in the sump I built because the water level was too low to get the bubbles towards the top. The Mame Overflow restarts it's siphon like a champ when it fully drains as much water as it can and the siphon breaks from the cube. When the water pump in the sump is turned back on the drain restarts on it's own, pretty awesome! Lol, sorry for not turning my camera sideways Ty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HarleyGuy Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 On 2/11/2017 at 9:35 AM, FluxCapacitor said: I assembled everything last night. The light diffuser is to keep the clown fish from jumping because one time the female jumped over into the small sump area on the cube. I'm glad that's the direction she went rather than one of the other 3 walls that would have put her on the floor. Lucky! I have a custom lid on order from Artfully Acrylic to replace the diffuser because I liked the one I got from them for my 34G tank so much. This brand was at Reburn's suggestion and seeing his at his home convinced me that they were nice lids. Anyway, I ended up going w/ two pumps. The main pump in the cube is staying where it is to maintain circulation through the area in the rear of the cube where the skimmer still resides. I couldn't figure out a way to get it to work in the sump I built because the water level was too low to get the bubbles towards the top. The Mame Overflow restarts it's siphon like a champ when it fully drains as much water as it can and the siphon breaks from the cube. When the water pump in the sump is turned back on the drain restarts on it's own, pretty awesome! Lol, sorry for not turning my camera sideways Ty. This looks really good. I'm building a 10 gal sump for my 36 gal reef this weekend. You got me thinking that I really need one on that tank. I'll attach some pics to this thread if that's ok? I'm using plex dividers as well. I hope my silicone job looks as good as yours. :-) Where did you get the Chaeto? Someone on ARC? I'll need that before long. One note, you might want to look at the screen top kits at BRS. I've built a couple of them and really like them. They look very clean and are fairly reasonably priced. Here is the link if you're interested: http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/diy-aquarium-screen-top-kits-rimmed-tanks-1-8-netting.html I'll have some pics next week of my attempt at a 10 gal sump. :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gig 'em @ NDstructible Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 That's an impressive little set up! Way to go Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HarleyGuy Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 Here is my attempt at a 10 gal sump for my 36 gal reef. My silicon job is lacking, I had to move the 2nd panel and that messed up the silicon so it isn't as clean as FluxCapacitor's lol. it is functionally sound though. Here is the structure: 1st section - Mechanical filter (sock, putting in a shorter one), Marinepure Bio Media (balls) instead of live rock 2nd Section - Marinepure Bio block and Chaeto with adjustable water level, and JBJ Refugium Light 3rd section - Poly filter and return I will also try and fit my GFO reactor in here somewhere.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+FluxCapacitor Posted March 21, 2017 Author Share Posted March 21, 2017 Very nice! I'm glad to see other people trying to make their own stuff too. Mine is still running really well. It's made doing water changes easier for me also. I've added some of that bioplate stuff to mine as well to increase the surface area that bacteria can inhabit. It's also got a huge chaeto ball in it now. BRS has a recent video they did where they measured the filtering capacity of running chaeto in your sump and the results were pretty impressive in favor of using chaeto. The amount of nutrients they were able to maintain was very low in the systems using a proper grow light on the algae. Are you going to do your ATO sensor in the sump? Mine is in the chamber where the pump is because if water evaporates it's usually noticeable there. My larger tank is set up with the ATO sensor in the sump as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HarleyGuy Posted March 28, 2017 Share Posted March 28, 2017 Thanks, much appreciated! I saw that BRS video as well and it made me feel better about running Chaeto in both of my tanks. :-) It also seemed to be more efficient than I was expecting. We will see. I have ATO sensors, and yes I would definitely put it in the return chamber. However I don't have an ATO tank/container for this reef yet. I need one though as I'm getting tired of hauling water every week. lol I have a 10 gallon ATO setup for my 120, so that should last a week or so in that tank (hopefully). I think 4 or 5 gallons would be plenty for this 36 gallon tank to run a week, but I need to find one that I can set next to the tank on the floor (there isn't room in the stand) without looking bad. Ideas? Here (below) is the final pic with the shorter filter sock, JBJ Nano light, and the small GFO reactor. Its ready to install this weekend. I forgot to ask, what bulb are you running for your Chaeto? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+FluxCapacitor Posted April 12, 2017 Author Share Posted April 12, 2017 This: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LZVX5D2/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Sorry for the late reply. A small update: the side panel on my home made sump developed two cracks in it for seemingly no reason. This was not one of the panels that had a plexiglass and/or silicone.... it cracked right in the middle of the panel. I had to switch everything over into a larger sump made by Oceanic. This did allow me to move my skimmer down into the sump now so that is good. The chaeto grow light above was suggested to me by MFrame and I've been pretty satisfied with it so far. My Chaeto seems to have grown from the size it was given to me. I do have the means of measuring it's weight so that might be a cool experiment to do. I decided upon not putting any sand in my new sump just to make things cleaner. For some reason the entire small sump I had built myself was filling up with all kinds of crazy detritus. This could have been due to lack of mechanical filtration but, in any case, the new sump has been running for a week or so now and it is much cleaner looking and has a lot more water volume. The Mame overflow is still running like a champ and I'm very pleased with it as a product. I want to get one of their glass nano skimmers now just because of my experience with their overflow and being pleased with the quality of it. The sump, I think holds more water than my 14G aquarium does that it's attached to so this was a big win that I didn't really expect or ask for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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