# Pure genius or complete idiocy?



## The King Crabb (Jun 28, 2011)

So I'm in the planning stages of a DIY complete 125G setup with sump stand, canopy, and built in lighting - the whole shabang! But the master of the house says no sump,  , so I've been thinking of a different way around that since I didn't want to spend more than three times as much getting a canister filter. So I thought to myself (last night at 1:00 AM no less) "why not put the sump behind the tank?" So I whipped out the drawing pad and got to work! The pump I'd use is only 3.1" wide the "sump" (which now I guess is more of an internal filter?) is only going to about 3.5" wide. I'm thinking 5 inlets - each about an inch in diameter and each of them a foot apart. They would then rise and come together (through a series of elbows and "t"s) into a sole 1.5" diameter PVC pipe with a ball valve on it to control flow. Then it goes through all the filtration and bioballs and blah blah blah until it reaches the end of the "sump" and will then get pumped the 24" back over the divider and the water will be pushed through a 6' spray bar that's running the length of the tank. So what do you guys think? I'm still tinkering with the idea and will draw it up when my computer decides to let me!


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## jackskellington101982 (May 16, 2011)

i haven tanken on anything that big yet, I am doing o grav tube over my 55g right now so I will let you know how that turns out. and keep us posted on your project.


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## iwade4fish (Jan 5, 2009)

Reefers have been doing similar things with refugiums for years, take a look see around their forums for ideas.
Also, a Hamburg-Mattenfilter would also work well w/that set-up, perhaps in a corner....http://www.deters-ing.de/Gastbeitraege/ ... filter.htm


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## The King Crabb (Jun 28, 2011)

iwade4fish, although I don't speak German (I assume that's German) I get the concept! Looks like it could work, although keep in mind that this will be pumping 900GPH and I'm hoping to have a spray bar in the tank so that the flow isn't too focused! But I'll definitely look into that - as far as I can tell it's almost the same as my idea (which apparently others have had) but without so much filter floss and the whole wet/ dry portion!


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## xxbenjamminxx (Jan 22, 2011)

If you use Google Chrome as a browser a bar will pop up on top of the page asking if you would like to translate it to English. It works pretty slick and that page is step by step instructions on how to do that.

Hope that helps ya


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## pistolpete (Dec 28, 2009)

Here's a thought for you: instead of of bothering with a bunch of fancy plumbing, why not just have a slotted overflow into the first chamber. You will need a series of baffles to create a long winding path for the water to take through the filter. so just have the first baffle with a slot on the bottom. 900 GPH is not nearly as much flow as you probably think it is, a 3 foot bar will do the trick.


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## The King Crabb (Jun 28, 2011)

pistolpete said:


> Here's a thought for you: instead of of bothering with a bunch of fancy plumbing, why not just have a slotted overflow into the first chamber. You will need a series of baffles to create a long winding path for the water to take through the filter. so just have the first baffle with a slot on the bottom. 900 GPH is not nearly as much flow as you probably think it is, a 3 foot bar will do the trick.


I was hoping someone would ask this, thank you! This is the second part of my self-proclaimed genius plan. With an overflow box, you're basically just sucking water in from the top inch or two of water, so 900GPH cycling through only about 8G of water didn't sound appealing to me. So, I decided that with the five intakes I'll drill them all at different heights: 4", 8", 12", 16", and 20" (spray bar will give current so top 4" of water will move lower). notice that even the highest one is still 4" under the highest possible spot of the waterline and therefore there is no siphon, no crazy physics, and no possible overflowing! The water in the "sump" section will only be about 18" high so the higher water in the tank section will force water through all 5 tubes with the same force and push it out into sump portion with a flow that will be controlled via ball valve. This way I have all the water flow coming in at different sections that will all be concealed by my DIY background, so all you see is maybe some larger than average holes between the fake rocks. But wait, there's more! Attached to the 16" pipe will be another pipe that will go up higher than the waterline, this pipe will be sealed at all times and have the air tubing in it to suck in air - but is that all it does? No! It will have a t, right before the air tubing, that will be plugged up until needed. But why will it be needed? Water changes! I just start the siphon off that tube and put it on a hose, run the hose out the window and leave the tank as it is for about 10 minutes - at which point the water will be low enough to stop the siphon and I'll still have enough room in the tank for the fish to swim. No way of overflowing from water changes (which will be amazingly easy), power failure, or broken tubing! Any input/ feedback for that?

PS I upped the GPH, found a pump that will be $2 cheaper (including shipping) and is 1300GPH, sounds like quite the deal eh?


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## Rick_Lindsey (Aug 26, 2002)

I'm confused now. Are the 5 intake holes all on one side, or spaced all across the back? At first I thought you were doing something where you'd have a chamber in the back of the tank, with holes on one side, a pump on the other, and your media of choice (with baffles if it makes you happy) in the middle. That clearly doesn't jive with your last post though.

What am I missing?

-Rick (the armchair aquarist)


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## The King Crabb (Jun 28, 2011)

Sorry, in the spur of the moment I got a little over excited and failed to explain properly. The "sump" chamber will be behind the tank and all 5 inlets will be on the back wall, hidden by a DIY background. The inlets will be spaces 1 foot apart from each other (on a 6' tank) and will be escalating from 4" up to 20" with 4" of heigh difference between each inlet. Hope that's a little more clear :thumb:

I was always wondering about baffles myself! I'm fairly sure I'll make a long thing chamber for filter media so that the water is initially driven through that but no sure if I want to make it wet/ dry at some point in the "sump" chamber. Thoughts?


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## pistolpete (Dec 28, 2009)

My XP4 does about 3 to 400 gallons per hour, it all goes through one 3/4" intake and out through a 6" spray bar. the flow through the 75 gal tank is relatively modest. Trust me, you do not need an elaborate plumbing system. One pipe in, one pipe out, tank circulation takes care of itself regardless of positioning. But if you have time and money to re-invent the wheel, by all means go ahead.

I thought that you were partitioning off the back 4 inches of your tank. If you are building a box filter for behind the tank, then that's a different story. Unless you have a pile of free acrylic sitting around, this will cost you 3 times as much as a good canister filter.


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## The King Crabb (Jun 28, 2011)

pistolpete said:


> I thought that you were partitioning off the back 4 inches of your tank. If you are building a box filter for behind the tank, then that's a different story. Unless you have a pile of free acrylic sitting around, this will cost you 3 times as much as a good canister filter.


Sort of both! This will be on a DIY 125G plywood fish tank. Meaning that only the front wall is glass and from the side the tank will only look a little bit wider than you'd think, which most people will pass off as due to the background. I'm just going to slide in another piece of plywood (same height as all walls) and silicone that into place. I'll have all the holes drilled in beforehand and maybe the bulk heads as well - should I put in the bulkheads first? Sorry about all this confusion, I'm going to try to draw this out by hand (computer software isn't working too well) and post the pictures in hopes of lessening the confusion!


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## iwade4fish (Jan 5, 2009)

The King Crabb said:


> With an overflow box, you're basically just sucking water in from the top inch or two of water, so 900GPH cycling through only about 8G of water didn't sound appealing to me.


When that 8 gallons of water goes over the overflow, water from below it rises to take it's place, and the spraybar ensures all the water gets mixed properly. This is not a issue as much as I think you think it is.

Here's a video of a 1385 GPH pump draining, barely, through three 1" bulkheads, no siphon, just gravity...
http://s479.photobucket.com/albums/rr15 ... -11004.mp4

The shop isn't level, so it was starting to flow over the lowest end a bit, but it's the same set-up I have been running on the 100 for a while now. You need more than a single 1" hole to handle 1300gph.


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## The King Crabb (Jun 28, 2011)

iwade4fish said:


> The King Crabb said:
> 
> 
> > With an overflow box, you're basically just sucking water in from the top inch or two of water, so 900GPH cycling through only about 8G of water didn't sound appealing to me.
> ...


Excellent video!! That's very helpful. Luckily I'll have (5) 1" holes so that should work alright, right? I'll also have a ball valve on the inflow to the sump and outflow from the sump so I'll be able to control the flow to get the water levels to stay the same (ish). What are your thoughts on adding a sort of "tower" to the hole 16" above the water (second highest hole, water will exit by the 20" hole) and capping that off with some airline tubing at the top, will that make the "sump" noisier?


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## The King Crabb (Jun 28, 2011)

iwade4fish said:


> You need more than a single 1" hole to handle 1300gph.


Disregard my last post, I see what you mean now. What if I were to split the sump inlet tube (1") twice, so there would actually be 4 1" inlet tubes? Would that give anymore flow even though it's all coming through the same tube?


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## iwade4fish (Jan 5, 2009)

Never been a fan on having a valve on the output side, but that's me.
5 holes will make it quieter, and splitting it won't increase the flow for reasons you stated, still the same tube. Keep plugging at it, I have hundreds of ways NOT to make stuff, but I eventually found the way to make it right!


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## R-DUB (Jun 3, 2007)

I guess I don't understand why this is not still a sump? Just mounted higher. Why not just put the sump in the cabinet? Same dif but with out all the BS. A really narrow sump could create some access problems down the road. Just my 2 cents. Good Luck and keep us posted!


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## The King Crabb (Jun 28, 2011)

R-DUB said:


> I guess I don't understand why this is not still a sump? Just mounted higher. Why not just put the sump in the cabinet? Same dif but with out all the BS. A really narrow sump could create some access problems down the road. Just my 2 cents. Good Luck and keep us posted!


Plenty of reasons, most major of which is it won't be allowed :lol: And because shelf height would be weird, this is easier, no open water, easier to light, no overflow possible, etc.



> Keep plugging at it, I have hundreds of ways NOT to make stuff, but I eventually found the way to make it right!


Oh don't I know it! I've been thinking over every inch of this project for the last 3 weeks. I'm thinking of putting in a couple of t's on the pipeline right before the 20" high inlet so that I'm actually getting flow from 3 tubes, but I may also have to not connect any of these tubes, I'll have to order my pump and buy some sterilite containers and do some tests!


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## Valous (Jan 30, 2011)

Have you looked into an over head sump? Very similar to what I got from ur plan. From my understanding of them is that you can get away will a lower profile because it wont euphonious back into the tank.


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## The King Crabb (Jun 28, 2011)

Overhead sump? Meaning I have it hidden within the canopy and have the pump pushing water into the sump instead of out of the sump?


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## Valous (Jan 30, 2011)

That is correct. The pump is in the tank pushing the water up through the filter. The only thing the one person I know says about it is load. Although his return pipes were not below water level. Since ur making a background you could put the return pipes lower to lower the splashing noise.


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## The King Crabb (Jun 28, 2011)

Valous said:


> That is correct. The pump is in the tank pushing the water up through the filter. The only thing the one person I know says about it is load. Although his return pipes were not below water level. Since ur making a background you could put the return pipes lower to lower the splashing noise.


Intriguing idea. I'm pretty satisfied with my current plans though! Here they are, the monitor finally turned on so I made up the design on google sketch up!


















Here is the part I was talking about, the orange tube is capped at the top so I can uncap it and put a hose on for easy water changes. It's on the 16" high tube so it'll be set for 33% water changes:









Notice how all the output PVCs are right up against the filter media (10 oz. quilt batting), this should help make it almost dead quiet. Also notice how I now have 5 outlet tubes coming in there, I'm going to a ball valve on a couple of them to make sure that I don't get more than 1,300GPH running into the sump!









Here's how the water will exit the filter media, the mesh will be finer than this:









Overhead view:









Here's what you would see from the front if the background didn't cover it, notice that I added the spray bar.









You may have seen that the elbows and t's in my design aren't circle, but squares. I assure you that they will be circles in the actual design, I just couldn't get the hang of making PVC elbows in sketch up :lol:


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## Valous (Jan 30, 2011)

interesting. and i guess with the ball valves you can control how much each pipe is flowing. No one question this tank is being made out of plywood. then why only a 125. You could go a little deeper and make it bigger.


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## The King Crabb (Jun 28, 2011)

Valous said:


> then why only a 125. You could go a little deeper and make it bigger.


Glass is the main reason. It will be by far the most expensive part, and that's including lighting, stand, rest of back, background, plumbing, and all other electrical components.

It will actually be a little larger than a 125G, I'll be adding 4" in length and 2" in width to help accommodate the background so the background doesn't take as much water volume.


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## Valous (Jan 30, 2011)

You can go as deep (front to back) as you want. Pressure on the glass is due to the height of the tank. That is why if you get a 150 4' tank the glass is normally thicker then a 150 6' tank. besides by making it deeper you dont have to worry about the background taking up to much room.


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## The King Crabb (Jun 28, 2011)

How deep would you go? I'm hoping to keep it under "monster" tank status :lol: Right now the tank will be about 24" with the background addition and the sump back there, I think that seems pretty wide!


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## Valous (Jan 30, 2011)

Depends on what is being kept in there. 24" is not wide enough for a arrow or stingray. but if keeping most Africans then i guess that is plenty wide enough. If it was me, 24" of swimming space is what I like, but I do like the large ca/sa cichlids.


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## The King Crabb (Jun 28, 2011)

It'll be house Mbuna. I know that they're small fish but I prefer the "Kaleidoscopic" of colors that many small fish offer rather than the restricted motley of colors larger fish give.

Stock for it:
20 Psuedotropheus Demasoni
1m:7f Psuedotropheus Acei "Ngara"
1m:7f Labeotropheus trewavasae "Red Top Trewavasae"
1m:4f Metriaclima Msobo
1m:4f Labidochromis Chismulae or White Labs


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## Valous (Jan 30, 2011)

Cant comment on the stock list, as my selection of africans are not always great here. But with smaller fish then the width is great. And when do you start building?


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## The King Crabb (Jun 28, 2011)

Valous said:


> And when do you start building?


I was hoping to start on Monday, but got slightly back tracked. Should begin within 2 weeks! :thumb:


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