Sump questions

Hey everyone. As I mentioned in my welcome post, I’m switching from a reef tank to a discus. It’s a 75G. My sump has 3 chambers…left side is where the water enters the sump, the middle section was for my skimmer, and the right chamber is for my return pump. This is the first time I will be using a sump for a freshwater and on top of that, I’m going bare-bottom so I’ll need extra media.

I’ll have pre-filter pads in the filter chamber (I use pinky filters), maybe some other filter pads underneath, lots of bio-filter media in the center (as seen in pic), and the return pump and heater in the last chamber. Would this be enough filtration for around 8-10 juveniles?

Thanks

Looking at this sump it looks like a salt water sump. When the water enters the sump does it go through a sock or flow through that first pad into holes and fall into the first pit. That is what I would do. Replace that pad for a coarse sponge. Under the sponge should be a drip plate. The pit below would be best with plastic bio-balls. Next section should have the media pictured above. The problem is the water is hitting the wall going up and flowing into that chamber. So it’s hit or miss how much water will flow through the media. For fresh water the water comes in at the bottom flows through the media and than hits the wall and flows up into the pump area. I use wet/drys so I only have 2 chambers. I would put a sponge across the input area of your last chamber. Are you using dc pumps?

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Originally Posted by Iminit

Looking at this sump it looks like a salt water sump. When the water enters the sump does it go through a sock or flow through that first pad into holes and fall into the first pit. That is what I would do. Replace that pad for a coarse sponge. Under the sponge should be a drip plate. The pit below would be best with plastic bio-balls. Next section should have the media pictured above. The problem is the water is hitting the wall going up and flowing into that chamber. So it’s hit or miss how much water will flow through the media. For fresh water the water comes in at the bottom flows through the media and than hits the wall and flows up into the pump area. I use wet/drys so I only have 2 chambers. I would put a sponge across the input area of your last chamber. Are you using dc pumps?

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That is exactly what is is. The pic is of my sump running right now and how the water flows. Don’t mind the mess…I have hoses running through that hole into my fish room for a macroalgae reactor, along with electrical wires. Is it usable or would you recommend a Wet/Dry sump? And yes, I use a DC pumpAttachment 133654

Big difference from salt to fresh. Your going to remove everything in that sump and start with a clean sump. Here’s what 2 of my wet/drys look like.Attachment 133655 this one is on a 90g. Water enters on the right into a drip plate than flows through a ball pit and into a sump with a few bags of matrix than back into tank. This next one is on a 180Attachment 133656 it has 2 chambers and a sump. Both chambers have a filter media pad in them. The sump has bags of matrix and bio-home. That’s it. That’s all you’ll need.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Iminit

Big difference from salt to fresh. Your going to remove everything in that sump and start with a clean sump. Here’s what 2 of my wet/drys look like.Attachment 133655 this one is on a 90g. Water enters on the right into a drip plate than flows through a ball pit and into a sump with a few bags of matrix than back into tank. This next one is on a 180Attachment 133656 it has 2 chambers and a sump. Both chambers have a filter media pad in them. The sump has bags of matrix and bio-home. That’s it. That’s all you’ll need.

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Interesting! So, you don't run any filter pads at all? or do you have filter pads in the drip plate? I'm gonna look into the wet/dry sumps. I live in Japan and their systems are so archaic. The tank (reef-ready) has one stand pipe of the left side that sends the water into the sump and the water gets returned to the tank through the same stand pipe through a smaller diameter pipe.

My sump runs differently than the above, I find the noise level of the the drip drip wet/dry annoying. All you really need in a sump is adequate mechanical and bio filtration. For mechanical I buy 20ppi sponge from eBay and cut to size. For bio I like ceramic rings. Turnover is fine at 3-5x …

If you want extra stuff like Purigen, etc go ahead but with the frequent WCs and good temps you’ll have the basics covered!

One last thing, I like to have airstones in the sump for aeration. I don’t care for the “look” of bubbles in the tank, and prefer to keep tank as silent as possible. Still, your fish will appreciate as high O2 level as you can give. My method is adequate surface agitation and airstones in sump.

Sorry I didn’t see you got back to me. Yes I have sponges on the drip plates. I rinse them weekly with the sponge before the return sump. Thing with a wet dry is the water is oxygenated through the drip plate. So you can add an air stone but I haven’t need it.