DIY Complex Sump, Success, Failures, Lessons

[sirvine24]

The design of my old sump, which maximized the refugium, worked for me. So, I pretty much wanted the same thing for this sump.

The new sump would build on that design and add some features

Here is my mockup of what it could look like. It adds a drain chamber, filter sock holder, and bubble trap/heater/extra media section after the skimmer.

This uses a 40g breeder. I planned to try it out with glass baffles. The local glass shop gave me a bunch of ¼” plate glass "scraps" for free, so taught myself to work with glass (youtube) and planned on glass baffles. Through practice I decent at cutting glass and even making odd holes, cutouts etc.

*Fail: Know the INSIDE dimensions of the stand before committing to a sump.

The 100g aquarium that is 48” long by 20” deep. The 40g breeder is 36” long by 18” deep. I failed to account for bracing and the trim of the stand. So a 20” deep stand has 16-17” max clearance inside.

Then I looked for a 30g long which is 36”L x 12”D. Side note, no one sells these. I did find a used one craigslist for only a few dollars. But it was old and needed to be resealed.

Given this, and my newfound skill at working glass (or so I thought), I decided to modify the 40g breeder to make it 14” deep.

This was a difficult, frustrating, and tedious process. During it I chipped, cracked and chewed up the panels of the aquarium.

Already damaged after just removing the black trim

*Fail: I couldn't make clean cuts for the panels.

Even though I had some success practicing, I pretty much just created a dangerous glass mess when trying cut the sides of the aquarium.

Afterward, I wasn’t confident that I’d make a solid leak-proof aquarium, so it was a waste time-wise, luckily it wasn’t that expensive… yet.

I then went to get the glass cut to size, but the quotes were more than getting acrylic, so change of plans, go all acrylic.

Lessons:

• Double, triple check all dimensions, especially inside the stand
• Taking apart glass aquariums is horrible

 

[sirvine24]

I researched working with acrylic and building an acrylic sump. The layout only slightly changed, and I was hoping to make this.

I got the local plastic shop to cut the major panels, and baffles. I got my router to finish the edges (smooth edges are important).

I practiced a little to get familiar with weld-on and the pin/capillary methods.

*Fail: When it was show-time, the smallest minor mess-ups let to bubbles and compromised seams. This was an expensive mistake, because acrylic sheets aren’t cheap.

I built the jig to make sure everything was straight and square. It started off ok, but quickly went south.

I accidently bumped an edge while welding, then after repositioning, it looked like this.

My next (final) backup was to use a local acrylic fabricator to build the tank for the sump.

Lesson: Let the pros build the base tank for the acrylic sump

 

[sirvine24]

For the local fabricator, I’ll give a quick plug:

Precision Plastics in Andover. http://designedacrylics.com/

It’s essentially a one-person shop. He has some experience making aquariums, didn't charge much on top of materials to build the tank, and finished it in two days. After trying to put one together, this was the way to go.

Since I was a little familiar with welding acrylic and the baffles aren’t as critical, I decided to tackle those myself. It took some tedious hours I welded the baffles. I used Weld-on 4 at first using, then used weld-on 16 to fill the gaps, but there were a lot of gaps. Although a little sloppy, it turned out alright, and functional.

The build:
Filter sock holder
View attachment 116775

Baffle fitting
View attachment 116776

Black egg crate for the frag section. I got acrylic to block the light from the rest of the stand.
View attachment 116777

Baffles welded
View attachment 116778

2-4" filter sock holder
View attachment 116779

After water testing I fabricated this riser to make sure the water flows through the filter socks.

Edges were razor sharp, desperately needed sanding

Dry fitted in stand

Lessons in hindsight if I had to do it again:

• Use a standard glass aquarium I available, do not try to alter one
• For acrylic, get the pros to build the base aquarium.
• When making baffles, I’d use the weld-on, then follow up with that silicon for plastics it the red tube. That way everything doesn’t have to be perfect. In my experience, it bonds better than regular silicone, and reef safe.

 

[sirvine24]

Now the sump is up and running, so far so good:

It fits a Marine Pure block as a skimmer stand, and MP plate, and a MP balls occupy the other two media chambers. The Frag section is about 15 gallons, overall it holds a little under 30 gallons.

I was limited with space, so I had to minimize plumbing. The baffle between the drain and the return chambers is right between the Main drain and return bulkhead. So those pipes can both go straight down. I could also have the emergency go straight down into the return section, but I ran it into the drain.

 

[MofoCorals]

Thanks for sharing and taking the time to write this up. Very nice sump.

Mine needs a little work lol

 

[jamesdong009]

This sounds like me on many things I try to DIY. In the end, I should've had a professional do it

 

[JRoman]

I Just cut glass my design has ATO water

 

[aresangel]

I ended up having a student make a sump for the 75 gallon at school. Crooked baffle leads to a loud waterfall effect. It isn’t terrible but I would have done it better!

On top of that.... the 29 gallon tank was too long to fit into the stand. I had to cut off part of stand about an inch and a half to force it in... needless to say I will never be changing out the sump in this one!

You can see my crude cuts with a jigsaw. Damn stand was oak... destroyed the blade.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[sirvine24]

This sounds like me on many things I try to DIY. In the end, I should've had a professional do it

Yeah, I definitely learned some of my limitations, which is a good thing. Though I may like to try making a smaller aquarium in the future.

 

[sirvine24]

I Just cut glass my design has ATO water

Nice sump! I considered that design. But I have a fish closet I can take advantage of to hold my ATO so that freed the space up for a larger frag/fuge section.