Question about a sump

[nightridr]

Hi,
I hear alot of people say they have a sump and it helps for better water quality. Well my question is what is a sump and the benifits of having one and also how do you set one up?
I have a 29 gl with 15 lbs of lr and 40 pounds of ls a hand on back filter, 1 powerhead, seaclone skimmer (which sucks and does not produce any foam).
thanks for any help

 

[littlebuck]

How long have you had your tank it? It takes a while for the skimmer to sctully start doing its job mine took a week or so to get foaming and also the air valve might need to be adjusted. A sump is a system that can go under ur tank u can either get a 10 gallon tank or buy a wet dry filter.

 

[nightridr]

I have had my tank a couple of months and my skimmer about 3 weeks. I have adjusted the valve many times and never does anything different.

 

[littlebuck]

if you read about adjusting it, it should say wait a lil while before adjusting it. Maybe im wrong but thats how i got mine to work and it dosent really preduce that much yet since tank is fairly new and so is urs for only a couple months. Maybe some one else have some insite on this but i would wait for a little while tring to adjust the knob. also what do you have in there?

 

[nightridr]

1 perc clown, 2 green chromis, 5 turbo snails and 5 blue legged hermits

 

[nightridr]

bump

 

[jjlittle]

On the sump question they are great they give you more water volume and they really help a tank stay more stable which is key and also allows you to house your skimmer and circulation pump etc in there instead of the main tank. If your tank in not drilled which it sound that way you would have to add a over flow box which would pull water to the sump(just a small tank below the main tank) and tehn have a return pump pumping back to the main tank. You could eleminate teh hang on the back skimmer and get a skimmer that is in the sump up to you if you do not mind seeing the skimmer then I would just leave it but if you skimmer is not working well then would go that route for I think the in sump skimmer are a much better more effective skimmer.

 

[nightridr]

thanks for the help

 

[usinkit]

i have a sump/refugium. adding the refugium has made my tanks water quality much better. if you decide to do a sump i would add an area for a refugium. my refugium area is maybe 8-10 gallons of a 30 gallon sump.