I finally got the sump filter built and installed on my 6' tank

It's made from a 3' tank I had spare to which I added three dividers and cut a hole in the end for the in-feed. Cutting the 35mm hole in the back of my 6' tank was nerve-wracking but worked out just fine in the end. I got the diamond hole cutter on Ebay for $20, cut the holes then sold it to someone else for $17 - a real bargain.

The first stage has a fine wool pad followed by a course sponge, activated carbon (not visible in the photo's) and finally Ceramic Noodles.

The second stage has bio balls, Japanese matting, cerami-sub and finished off with fine wool pads.

Stage 3 is currently empty and the fourth stage has the heater and return pump.





The return is by way of 15mm retic' pipe drilled to act as a spray bar.





The noodles and bio balls were from my original canister filters so that it would be pre-seeded which seemed to work out fine as well.

I had to modify the cabinet to be able to remove the middle door and its support so that I could get the sump in.

It was a bit of a logistics nightmare moving everything out of the tank setting it all up and then moving everything back in but the money I got selling my canister filters easily paid for the sump with money left over and the tank looks so much better with no pipes, heaters or anything else visible.

I now need to decide what to do with the spare stage - I have thought about putting a light in the cabinet and putting plants in this section to help remove Nitrates but I have no experience with this at the moment.

look for refugium in the search engine, loads of info on that subject.
I just filled the chamber up with foam slabs.
If water get low in the sump i will see airbubbes before it totally would empty!
I guess the drilling was nerve wrecking!

I know you are gonna like your sump.For me its low maintenance.
Just cleaning the prefilter and the sump biopart never gets touched!
Ammo and Nitrites are allways zero, even with max bioload.
And yes, i tried that!

Looking good, you done a good job, it looks very similar to the one I have got set up on my 300 gallon aquarium

I hope you don't mind but I thought I would give you a little bit of advice that may stop you running into a few problems I have had since having a sump. You don't seem to have much of a gap/void underneath your media, if the media is just sitting at the bottom of the chamber you will find that sediment will slowly build up which in turn can actually restrict the water flow of the water flowing underneath the first chamber. Matters will be made worse because your media is quite small so sediment will actually bind it all together and restrict the flow even more.

You're also using the same type of media that you find in canister filters. Personally I would advise on using much larger media. The larger media will have a much larger surface area for bacteria growth but also the smaller media tends to find its way underneath the dividers and you end up with is spread all over the place. What I have done is used media grids and created about an inch of empty space between the media and the bottom of the filter. This means that the gap at the bottom of the divider is always kept free from obstruction, thus the water flows much easier.

In my new sump that we are constructing at the moment, I am going to have outlets on each chamber so I can actually attach a pipe and siphon any sludge straight out. I will actually be able to do this every couple of weeks so the filter is always kept free of that horrible sludgy crap that you find building up in your filters. If you don't have any outlet then you have to take all the media out to clean the filter. So whereas large sump filters can be left for ages without cleaning, eventually you will have to clean them and that can take quite a long time if you got lots of media. What you could to is actually use media packs, something I am considering. Basically all your media will sit in a bag so that when it comes to cleaning you just lift it out like you would a canister filter and the trays that are within.

Anyway, keep up the good work, you will enjoy your sump filter. By the way, you might as well utilize the space you have and put more biological filtration in.

Thats a nice looking job you done there. as ofl said putting media in bags makes a lot of sense, I have done it in my canisters and makes cleaning easier.

Aggreed with the boss.
I use small pieces of styrofoam and placed some shoppingcrate slates on top, just to make sure the water will allways keep flowing!
Good tip!

Thanks for the feedback guys - I'm always open for advice.

It's not clear in the photo's but all the media are in mesh bags to make it easy to remove them. I agree about leaving a gap at the bottom but haven't found anything suitable yet. Most people here use 'egg crate' as a spacer at the bottom but I haven't been able to find any yet - they don't seem to use it on lighting any more. I have looked at using under-gravel filter matting on spacers but I'd rather find something that I can cut to size more easily.

I wanted to get the sump going without having to cycle it hence using the noodles and bio balls from the canister filters - the idea was to get it going then slowly change the media. I know bio balls are out of favour for filters now but as I had them and they were fully cycled in they went

I have plenty of space above the sump and with everything in mesh bags I can easily make changes to the set-up now that it's running.