Sump Help

[joojoo]

So I'm thinking of adding a sump onto my 29 gallon Eclipse tank. It's almost half full of sand for some Jawfish, which leaves very little water volume. The tank is on a standard steel stand made for 29 tanks. So really only a standard 10 gallon tank will fit underneat it, unless I figure a way to use something else, but this is what I have on hand atm.
My question is about the siphon down to the sump and the pump return. The tank is already filled and cannot be drilled, and it has an Eclipse hood on top for the standard filtration, which leaves very little room for modification. There are 2 holes on each side of the hood where tubes could fit for the siphon and return, though.
I don't want to rely on a pump to get water to the sump for risk of overflow, so I would position the siphon tube about an inch under the DT's water line, carrying water to the sump.
I'm not totally sure, though, on how to get the water back up to the tank. I'm afraid a Mag-drive would pump faster than the siphon can carry down. Would a power head carry water back up? Any ideas on how to measure the rate of the siphon flow and how to match it with the right sized pump?
Am I thinking in the right direction? I've never fully understood the plumbing of sumps. I don't think I need baffles. Can I get by with just a siphon, a bioball cage, and a return pump? Any and all help is greatly appreciated!

 

[reefforbrains]

Plumbing of sumps is basically just different versions of same principle.
A sump is just an extra spot to house extra water volume that helpsstabilize the display tank because of addittional water volume without addittional bioload.
Taking advantage of the hidden sump many put it to use and use it for various benifits. Since shared water between both Display and sump you can-
Remove your heater from Display and put it hidden in the sump. Your return pump FROM the sump back to the display will also be in your sump thus adding flow to your tank and removing yet another peice of equipment from the diplay.
Adding live rock also adds to the biofiltration of the tanks whole system with no addittional draw on the inhabitants, also it doesnt remove swimming room from the display.
Adding baffles and so forth are for nothing else than to traffic water through from one side of sump to the other maximizing the sumps inhabitants, ie LR's or LS's exposure to the raw water from your DT.
Refugiums and other things go on and on for customizing the how and why people build sumps but they are just plain fun. They suit each tank differently and each hobbiests desires for what they are after......

[hr]
Your set up, a 10 gallon with a few baffles so that water would enter one side of sump from a gravity feed and fill up a first chamber overflowing into and across the center secton of Sump without making turbulence disturbing sand bed or blasting your rock if thats what you put in. There would be another baffle that would hold back the rock or sand and the water would have to pass OVER it then UNDER the last baffle into a chamber where your return pump would be, This would keep the sand from hurting yur pump and also smoothly channel your waterflow for max exposure to you rchosen media.
A MJ1200 WILL work for a return but you lose quite a bit of GPH and 36inch max or so. You would have an overflow that would be set for the MAX you want the tank to fill to, so everything beyond that would dump down into the sump,sump would then be pumped back out by the MJ on the otherside. The pump can only pump what is in the SUMP, and the tank can only hold its max before dumping into the overflow.
Sorry if this is a rambling mess but Hope it helps
-RFB

 

[reefforbrains]

So here is a dummy of all three chambers ofr your basic sump with basic explanation of baffles. Splitting your center section into TWO and running a light above it would be creating a refugium. add some cheato and viola!!
Please pardon the long posts, or if I have whipped this horse to death

 

[joojoo]

Thanks for all the input RFB. There is probably a distance of almost exactly 36 inches, most likely a little more, didn't exact measure, just aimed a ruler, lol. Is that cutting it too close? I really want to make this as simple as possible. I doubt a refugium of like 4-5 gallons would benefit very much. I just want this sump for a place to add some extra bio filtration, ie the bioballs. If I want some macroalgae, I'll just decorate the DT with it as it's a FO. Without the use of baffles I thought the more turbulent water would maximize the use of the bioballs?

 

[cmaxwell39]

I would probably look into a small mag-drive pump. You would probably want something along the lines of a mag 5 or smaller. The thing to remember about pumps is the farther they have to pump vertically, the less volume they will pump. This is called headloss.
The other piece of information you will need to know is what size tubing you will be using for your overflow. If your overflow will not handle all of the volume that the pump is returning to the tank you will have to cut down the flow from the pump by either installing a ball valve in the line or returning some of the water from the pump directly back into the sump. Standard overflows are 1" and are rated at 600 gph. HTH.

 

[joojoo]

A ball valve! Thanks for mentioning that maxwell, I completely forgot that will help with matching the flow. I cannot use a standard overflow with my hood design, I will have to just use a tube.