For the first two years of my Marine keeping I used to use just Live Rock and two external Rena XP3 filters for the filtration and all my kit would hang on the tank and look a mess. In February 2008, I started to build a sump to move all my equipment into and also seperate it off to have areas for Miracle mud, DSB and culurpa etc.
My sump is located in a small room behind the main display tank. The size of the sump is not that much smaller than the main display tank. The dimensions are 1150mm wide x 450mm Deep x 400mm High. This is all made out of 6mm plate glass, I made it myself. The tank holds approximately 200 Lites of water which has made the tank so much more stable.
Purpose Of The Sump
I have gone down the route of having a sump because I wanted to move all the kit into a different room and take some kit out the tank to make it look better. The other main reason for having a sump is so that I could seperate it off so that I can have culurpa in there along with a Deep Sand Bed and Miracle mud section.
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Sump Section 1: Water Inlet & Misc Equipment
In the first section of the sump, I have my Deltec MCE600 Protein Skimmer, its important that this goes before the miracle mud section as it will strip the goodness out otherwise! Also in the first section i have 2x Rena Cal Excel 200w Heaters which are controlled by the IKS unit keeping the tank at 26.0 Degrees. The main water inlet from the display tank goes into section 1, and also the spur off the return pump at approximately 2500 Litres per hour circulation. I have a couple of probes in here too along with the outlet from my RowaPhos reactor that sucks its water from section 4. |
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Sump Section 2: 4" Deep Sand Bed (DSB) & Culurpa The idea of the Deep Sand Bed is for little wiggies to live in it and break down Nitrates, it doesnt happen over night but i can see paths of where little worms have been. Different creatures live on different levels of the sand. At the bottom of the sand bed there is no oxygen. |
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Sump Section 3: 23 lbs of Miracle Mud (1.75" Deep) Miracle Mud is a product of EcoSystem Aquarium® that has been carefully formulated to include all the essential trace elements, minerals, and components necessary to maintain a successful aquarium. Miracle Mud will continually replenish your aquariums concentration of trace elements and minerals to create an ideal environment. Miracle Mud also contains anaerobic microorganisms that denitrify the aquarium leading to a pristine home for your fishes and corals. Further proven benefits from the usage of Miracle Mud include: Reversal of head and lateral line erosion (HLLE) in fishes. Restoration and maintenance of fish and corals health and vibrant colors. Compatibility in various types of aquariums (fish-only tanks, coral-only tanks, or small polyped stony (SPS) reef tanks) Natural denitrifier. Miracle mud generally costs about £55 per 10 lbs in weight. So as you can tell i have about £150 of Miracle Mud in my system, its certainlt worth its weight in gold, or Mud should I say!! |
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Sump Section 4: Return Pump Compartment The water in section 4 is controlled by the IKS so that it automatically tops up with fresh RO water when it gets low. If i did not top it up automatically it drops about 4 " in water level every day due to the amount on water in the system and the rate of evaporation. For information on my automated topup system, see the Auto Top-up page. Occasionally bits if algae etc pass over the edge into this section and get sucked into the pump so i have to peridodically clean this. I would put a comb thing on the glass edge but I have found this to cause bubbles and make the water unclear. |
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