Check list

silicone dry check

Filter media check

How wrong was I the pic tells it all

Filter material heaps

5kg ceramic noodles

200 x 40 mm bioballs



as you can see sadly lacking

but all is good got 500 more balls 42mm and 6kg of noodles coming tomorrow or the next day

hope that helps potential sump builders

Cheers Gaz

wow sounds like it will cost yu an arm and a leg to fill it =[
but all is well nothing but the best for our lil friends =]

gettin there!

That may not look like a lot of media in there but when you consider what you get in a canister you have more than enough to produce bio for 400g+ I bet.

I agree, the chambers don't have to be filled completely. Even with whats shown in the picture, there's alot of surface area for nitrifying bacteria to grow.

what count most is the rate the good bacteria comes into contact with water
and allow processing the nitrite into nitrate... if the water flows faster,
the lesser the conversion rate is...

good job, even if you miscalculated.
That's indeed gonna be one hell of a lot of surface for the bacteria.

and as you can see in this picture, i added lava rocks later on, after my sump had been running for quite some time.



and still it's not completely filled, but i never got any nitite reading, even before i put in the extra rocks, so i stopped where it's at now.
but i say go for it, and fill that baby up as far as possible.

That sump looks pretty cool.

I am using the bio - media from two existing canister filters + 2 liters of Seachem Matrix. Seachem Matrix is awesome, because the 2 liters I bought alone filter 200 gallons of water. I may buy one more liter this weekend.

I said that to say, with the 'little' biomedia I have from the two canister filters, and adding only 2more liters of SeaChem matrix, it looks like your media will handle 400G+ as Marcus said.

It looks...

Good

new additions coming, prices in Au $

Bio Balls 42mm x 500 $35.00 $35.00
2 Glass Noodles High Efficiency Filter Media 6 Liter Glass Noodles 3kg $15.00 $30.00


Grand total in media

22 liter ceramic noodles

35 liter bio balls

+ what ever 300mm x 370 mm x 200 deep filter pad is

and I decided on this pump

www.guppysaquariumproducts.com.au/pumps-...float/prod_1686.html

any one got idea's or plans on how to plumb 2 tanks off 1 sump (or 2 sumps)

The 55 will be sitting ever so humbly next to the 175 + 55 sump ????

Cheers Gaz

For the one's thinking bout having a go @ their own sump
BEWARE !!! it's addictive

i wouldn't know how to plumb several tank on one sump, but i know it's done.
My lfs has 3 huge tanks on a combined megasump, and i allways look at it and drool...

Out of logic's sake, I would think all the tanks would empty into the same chamber of the sump, and then...

one return pump per tank to have water returned to it.



That is exactly how I would do it.

If I get into breeding, that is what I will do.

I did see a ghetto rigged multi-tank sump system that a breeder rigged up in her apartment. She had about 12-18 tanks rigged up. She had tank 1 empty into tank 2, tank 2 empty into tank 3, tank N-1 empty into tank N...tank N emptied into the sump.

Finally, the sump returned water back to back to tank 1. the process started all over.

Here is the kicker, he was a discus breeder, so you know that system had to keep the water better than perfect.

Basically a daisy chain of one tank to another.

Another option.