Keeping Oscar Fish | What Is a Sump Filter? | Sump, Water, Media, Chamber, Tank

What Is a Sump Filter?

So what exactly is a sump filter? Well, a sump is a reciprocal at floor level that contains liquid, in our case water. All we are doing is putting media, pumps, and heaters in the sump. We now have our sump filter. My sump filter is made out of a 4 foot fish tank. It can hold approximately 70 gallons of water when totally full. However, when in operation, it holds around 40 gallons of water. I must add that my sump is set up for a tropical aquarium. Marine sump filters are often more complex as water quality can more critical.

My tank has got two reservoirs attached in each back corner of the tank. These reservoirs allow water to flow over the top of them. At the bottom of this chamber is a hole that has all the pipe worked connected to it. The water will drain through this hole and end up in the sump. With the use of a powerful pump, the water is then pumped back into your tank.

Sump filters can have any number of chambers for the media to go in. My sump has four chambers. The first chamber contains 1000 bio balls with mechanical sponge media on top. The second chamber contains just a heater. This chamber is left empty in case any other type of media is needed. I could in future add more biological media if I wish. The third chamber contains alfagrog. This chamber is performing as a wet dry trickle chamber. In simple terms, the chamber is full of media. The sump is set up so the water engulfs half of the media, the other half has water trickling through it keeping it wet, but not totally submerged underwater. Doing this means more oxygen comes into contact with the media than if it was underwater. The bacteria that live in your media need oxygen to survive, the more oxygen they get, the healthier and stronger they will be which should result in your biological filter being that much more efficient at dealing with toxins.

Wet dry chamber

You may think to yourself, what happens if the power goes off and the pumps stop working?, will the water will keep draining into the sump and flood the room. Fortunately, if it has been set up properly, this can't happen. Before filling the main tank up, you first fill your sump making sure you leave enough space for any excess water to enter it. So if the pump goes off, the water will continue to flow into the chamber until the water level drops just below the edge and then it will stop. As long as you haven't put too much water in the sump beforehand, there shouldn't be any accidents. This is the way my sump is set up, others may differ slightly.

Installing a sump filter is not a two-minute job. However, when you have got it set up and running properly, you will probably never go back to anything else. If you've ever used canister filters you'll know that cleaning them means take them out from underneath the Cabinet and taking them apart. Sump filters are easy to clean. Just a case of taking the lid off, rinsing out the sponges and you're done. No need to take it all out from underneath the Cabinet.down into the sump. If your tank is on a cabinet, all the pipework can be hidden away so you can't see it. The other great advantage of using a sump filter is that all the pumps heaters etc can be housed in it. We all know how rough Oscars can be and they are more than capable of doing damage to heaters. It also makes the tank with a lot less cluttered as you may find yourself using up to four heaters in large tanks.