What is the difference between a sump and a wet/dry filter?

thangbom

Active Member
a wet/dry filter is a 'sump'... a sump is nothing more than a water-proof container that is water from the main display go's to.. then from the sump back out to the main display... reason why u heve them is so u can put your skimmer,heater,calk reactor/dripper,auto -water fill... and what-nots.... u hide the sump under your stand or whatever away and out of sight so your mian display have a clean look to it...
 

lion_crazz

Active Member
Yes, and a sump does not contain biological media like a wet/dry does with bio balls. Most wet/dry's use a pad, whereas in a sump you would use filter bags to catch debris.
 

spencka

Member
Now you have me confused! I have what I thought was a wet/Dry Sump. Mine has three divided sections. One for the blue bio balls, a smaller section on the middle with some type of blue mesh filter, and finally another section which houses an underwater pump and skimmer.
I'm pretty new to S/W, I just started my cycle yesterday!
 

dogstar

Active Member
A sump is a container that your main tank drains to and theres a pump to pump water back to the main tank. You can place the skimmer pumps and heaters or UV pumps whatever in the sump.
Add a box or another chamber with bioballs or bio mesh above the water line to the sump and it is now a wet/dry or trickle sump/filter.
Many ppl. instead of adding a bioball box/chamber add a refugium chamber. Its a chamber with live sand and live rock and plants so it draws out nutriants from water for the plants so that they dont feed algea in the main tank. This is called a sump/fuge.
I made mine with all three so I have a wet/dry sump/fuge.
 
T

thomas712

Guest
Ole c&p
A wet/dry filter, also referred to as a trickle filter or a bio-tower, is an aerobic filtration method. For those of you that may not understand the term aerobic, it means occurring or living ONLY in the presence of oxygen. In other words, it can only work when oxygen is present. For this type of filtration, the more oxygen saturation it gets, the better it functions. Water is pumped from the aquarium, then by means of a drip/trickle plate or rotating spray arm the water is dispensed or "trickled" down over and through a biological material source contained in the wet/dry filter chamber, but not before the water is pre-filtered by means of mechanical filtration, which can be accomplished with the aid of a protein skimmer or by placing a pre-filter material such as filter floss, a filter sponge, or micron filter felt on top of the drip/trickle plate area. When the water falls through the holes of the drip/trickle plate onto the bio-media, this allows for aggressive oxygen saturation of the water. Remember, aerobic! The clean filtered water is then deposited back into the aquarium either directly, or first into a sump or some type of water containment area and then returned.
As pointed out earlier any container can be a sump, this includes the wet/dry, take the bio balls and and you got a sump.
As far as how it fits into the scheme of things as far as filtrations goes remember this, many will start their tanks with that natural filtration of live rock and live sand, two basic natrual filtration methods. Many believe that more is better but you can't have a tank full of sand and rock and a few gallons of water and hope to see fish and corals as well, so they add a tank that many would call a refugium, with maco algea, more sand and more rock. Many hobbiests prefer a more natural approch so they will take out the bio balls (which many villagers feel are a nitrate factory as they get out their pitch forks and torches and blame everything on the poor misguided bio balls). It is the pre filter or filter floss that may be the real danger here as it will trap and filter out many of the plankton that would be a benifit to the system and corals. All depends on what your goals are.
 

yupi1982

Member
My goal is a fish tank!!! :happyfish
can i add a wet dry/filter with bio balls,and it will be ok??? and fortget about the fuge.......
another question is ..doeas a fugfe need light...or can i place just rock and sand and it'lll be ok??

and if i do the fuge ...the water should be in the fuge in the first place, then pass to the bio balls chamber, and then to the sump ...right...???? :notsure:
please someone!!!!1 :help:

 
T

thomas712

Guest
If your goal is a simple fish only tank, or one with some live rock. Then I suggest you can go with a anything you want to. You can use.
1. A wet/dry filter, with or without bio balls, with protein skimmer
2. A plane sump, with protien skimmer
3. A refugium, yes with lighting, and plan on a skimmer somewhere.
4. A sump/refugium.
A sump is just a container of water and that can mean that it was a wet/dry with the bio balls taken out. The fuge also a container of water only with sand/rock/macro algea and lighting. If you do a sump and a refugium then there are many many ways of hooking them up or even making it out of the same container as a sump/fuge
What size tank are you considering?
Thomas
 
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