# Drilled 75 w/ Sump or Canister Filter(s)



## pelphrey (Apr 9, 2014)

Yesterday I went and looked at a drilled 75 gallon with a 20 gallon sump. Ended up not buying it because the glass was scratched pretty badly. And before I beat myself up with this anymore I want to make sure I am going in the right direction. Drilled tanks with sumps in my area are rare. Since this will be my first cichlid tank I want to make sure that the filtration is perfect. I know this depends on the overflow box and the return pump, but will I be okay with just a sump on a fully stocked tank (was going to do peacocks, think I want mbuna's now) or will I need to add a canister to the tank? Main reason I want the sump is to reduce the amount of "stuff" I have in the tank. Heaters can be placed in the sump for the return water.

I already have a 20 gallon tall tank I can turn into a sump. I am still searching for a 75 gallon with stand. If I have to do canisters I will I'll just paint all tubes/hoses black to blend in the with backgound the best that I can. I just figured in the long run building a sump would be a fraction of the price VS running 1 or 2 canister filters on a tank.

Thanks in advance!


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## Gazedo (Oct 22, 2013)

If the glass was scratched I think you made the right call passing on the tank. To me that indicates either age or misuse and that could be an indicator of lots of trouble in the future.

I understand that filtration for cichlids is different than for most other fish, for cichlids too much doesn't exist. With that in mind imo you could run either just a sump, just canisters, or a combination and be fine. Personally I would work with a safety factor of 5.

I went a little crazy and worked through some math and found that for each fish assuming 9 grams of food (assuming 1lb fish and 2% body weight feeding) per day, you need about *10 square meters* (safety factor of 5) of biological media surface area. To put this in perspective each 1.5" MarinePure ceramic ball claims to have 22 square meters of surface area and can thus support 2 fish per ball. Each cubic foot of bioballs has about 9 square meters of surface area and thus can support 1.5 fish (This seems absurdly low but is probably because its designed to not be submerged and thus will have different feed rates associated with it). Atleast that's what my math tells me though that doesn't take into account several factors such as:
flow rates
oxygen availability
possible pore clogging
and so on
I just chose the MarinePure because I already had the figures as I planned to use it at one time but with this you can easily found out how much media you need for your projected stocking levels. I have all my math that I can upload but for starting points I used the k1 figure of 100g of feed per day for submerged static media and worked from there. I found this somewhere and I could dig up the reference if anyone wants.

Again please take these figure with a grain of salt, they are just projected values based on anecdotal feed rates for koi and static k1 kaldness.

When designing your sump remember to leave room for more water in case of power failure, in my sump I have to leave 4 inches up to for all the water to drain, with a 20 tall you will need more. Personally I can see you easily fitting all the media into a sump so in answer to your question, Id suggest saving the money that would be spent on a canister and invest in the sump.


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## Gazedo (Oct 22, 2013)

Oops, I meant for starting point I used 100g of feed per day per 30 Liters of submerged static K1 Kaldness.


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## nodima (Oct 3, 2002)

IMO, a 75 or 90 gallon tank (48x18) is on the border of sump and canister, meaning either will work well for this size tank. Building a sump is quite easy, there are many different ways to approach it. A properly sized sump, with a balanced pump and overflow will easily support a 75. As an example, both my larger tanks are running with just a sump, it would be quite easy to scale down and run on on a 75. IME the challenge has been with ensuring sufficient water circulation in the tank, but this is easily solved with some flexibility around returns - spray bars for instance.

One advantage of a sump is the significantly larger amount of room available for media over a typical canister, you've hit on my favorite reasons for sumps - keeping "Stuff" in the tank to a minimum.


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## pelphrey (Apr 9, 2014)

nodima said:


> IMO, a 75 or 90 gallon tank (48x18) is on the border of sump and canister, meaning either will work well for this size tank. Building a sump is quite easy, there are many different ways to approach it. A properly sized sump, with a balanced pump and overflow will easily support a 75. As an example, both my larger tanks are running with just a sump, it would be quite easy to scale down and run on on a 75. IME the challenge has been with ensuring sufficient water circulation in the tank, but this is easily solved with some flexibility around returns - spray bars for instance.
> 
> One advantage of a sump is the significantly larger amount of room available for media over a typical canister, you've hit on my favorite reasons for sumps - keeping "Stuff" in the tank to a minimum.


I'll continue my search. I found another drilled 75 with stand and sump but the price is HIGH! I'd prefer to buy the tank drilled with the overflow already, only because once I buy all the stuff to do it myself I'll have a decent amount of money invested anyway. I don't mind to do the labor myself, but I'd rather buy it and just have to move it and get it setup. For the time being I'll probably just stock my 55 gallon then move them once I find the "perfect" drilled 75! Our 55 has been a community tank so those fish have to go then I can start figuring out which fish I want to buy then find some local breeders if possible.

The wife and I bought the 55 gallon at the beginning of the year. Since then I started 2 20 gallon planted tanks (Have since taken them down). Plan is to move the 55 into our office and put the 75 in the living room. If we had room I would just go with a 125, but that will be in the next house! I am pretty stuck on the sump idea. Tired of looking at the small community fish and am ready to have an active colorful cichlid tank. I am not against canister filters, but for the cost I feel like you get more bang for the buck with the sump and it has less parts that can go wrong for the most part.

Thanks for the advice! I really appreciate it!


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## pelphrey (Apr 9, 2014)

Ran across a 90 gallon drilled tank with a 30 gallon sump. They are supposed to hold it for me. Researched opinions on keeping cichlids in 75 vs 90. It's really 50/50 in opinions. Figured with aquariums it is better to go bigger then to wish you had gone bigger. I am 6'2'' so reaching into a 90 gallon shouldn't be a problem at all. This 90 is in much better shape then the 75 I looked at last weekend and it is cheaper. They did tell me that a baffle was broken in the sump and it did need a pump. That's no big deal. It was a salt water tank so the sump may need to be altered anyway and a brand new pump won't break the bank.

Hopefully everything this weekend checks out and I bring it home. Right now I have a 55 gallon community tank that has been running for 4 months. I've already got rid of all of the fish except for 15 neon tetra's. The plan is to pull the media out of the fluval 306 on the 55 and seed the new tank while I dose ammonia to build a solid bacteria colony since I'll more then likely stock 12-16 fish once its ready.

Excited to setup my first sump tank and have a feeling after this one it will be the only route I go. The thing I look forward to the most is keeping the tank clean and all accessories in the sump. Also keeping the media from the 306 in the sump until I have fish fry that need to grow out.


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## Berry_09 (May 2, 2014)

nice post.


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## pelphrey (Apr 9, 2014)

Picked up a 90 gallon drilled tank with a sump last weekend -






Kind of my plans for building the sump. Water comes in on the left and is filtered by sponges then flows into a drip tray that will hold bio balls and ceramic media. Ceramic media will be perfect in the sump. I have a 55 gallon running a fluval 306. Once the 90 is running the 55 will become a holding tank and grow out tank for any fry. Sump is a 30 gallon so I will have 1 chamber with nothing in it for now then the last chamber with heaters and the return pump.










Looking to attend the ACA in Louisville in a few months so I am trying to get this setup and cycled so I can stock the tank while I am there.

Comments/suggestions/concerns on the sump please let me know. This is my first sump setup.


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## nodima (Oct 3, 2002)

pelphrey said:


> Picked up a 90 gallon drilled tank with a sump last weekend -
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Congrats - I recently built a 30 gal sump, made some mistakes, but over all it works well.

The thing that jumped out at me the most in your sump design is that the pump chamber is too small. This will make adding small amounts of water required often. Make the pump chamber larger so when evaporation occurs, you can go longer without topping off the water.

some thoughts:

How will you maintain the foam under the intake? Another approach is to change this compartment so that the intake flows in, and the water flows OVER a barrier then down through foam and in a second chamber. This way, foam can be easily removed without the hassle of the intake tubing.

The second chamber then could flow into a 3rd chamber (from the bottom going up) filled with bio filter then overflow into the pump chamber. This way you would also lose the need for 2 of the glass barriers.

My biggest lesson learned was to be sure you leave enough space for those barriers where the water is intended to go under the glass (along bottom of sump) I nearly did not leave enough, and had to reduce the original amount of foam used or the water would overflow and bypass the foam.


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## pelphrey (Apr 9, 2014)

Awesome and thanks for the input. I cut the 1 remaining baffle out of the sump last night. As I was looking at it and thinking about the drawing I made with paint I knew my drawing wouldn't work the way I wanted it to. Most people I noticed leave a 1 inch gap between the baffle and the bottom of the tank to allow water to flow under it. Should I leave more?

The reason why I have the water running over foam in the first chamber is to reduce noise.


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