Simple DIY Sump

[M0oN]

I'm going to be putting together a 40 gallon sump for my 100 gallon discus tank soon and being that this is my first sump I'd like to get any feedback I can on mistakes or additions I should be making

I'm using the following diagram as a basis:
http://saltaquarium.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fw3page.com%2Ffishlin e%2Fgif%2Fsump.gif%3F

The overflow will have prefilters on it, pumping water at around 800 gph to the sump.

The tank is going to be molded out of acrylic and measure 36"x16"x16".

The bulkhead going to the sump will be 1" in diameter and I will use a slip bulkhead to attach flexible tubing to of the same diameter on the output for the pump return.

The interior walls for the sump will be peices of solid acrylic measuring 8" tall.

I'm going to use Eheim sintered glass balls as a media and an Eheim Hobby Pump to return the water at around 635 gph.

Are there any additions I should make to this, any problems you see so far?

[slicksta]

it should keep you busy for a while....when I get a chance I'll take some pics of my DIY system.
there's allot of gratification in DIY ......:thumbsup:

John

[Chris McMahon]

Just make sure that the sump can contain all the water in your main tank above the intake. When the power to the pump goes off, that water will empty into your tank.

A good way to make sure everything is ok is to empty the main tank below the sump intake, then with the pump turned off and an empty sump, continue to fill the main tank, water should then start to flow into the sump.

When the water in the sump reaches the maximum level you want in the sump - stop filling and turn on the pump.

I designed something similar but with an automatic water changer as well. See my other post in this forum. I'm crap at building stuff - better at design, so I'll probably get mine built for me.

Also for a neat way to keep your media together, get a few of those mesh media bags from your LFS, then you can easily pull your media out for cleaning.

I've read that a standard rule of thumb is 1:30 for media in trickle filters. So for
a 100 gallon tank, 3-4 gallons of media would be good.

BTW that's a fugly URL for that image. An easy way to post it would be to right click on the image and copy the URL that way ie
http://w3page.com/fishline/gif/sump.gif

Or the slightly neater;
Click here! (http://w3page.com/fishline/gif/sump.gif)

Or use a YABBC tag for inline display
http://w3page.com/fishline/gif/sump.gif