What size sump?

[Mr Wild]

I am continuing my fish room setup and have decided to put the 3 -4x2x2 on a sump as well.

Is there a magic calculation to tell me the size of the sump I will need? Or is it just a matter of flow vs storage?

Any tips are welcome.

Kath

[boxters]

IMO you will need at least a 4 foot sump about 280 litters. Your tanks in total will be about 2100 litters. This means about 8 litters of media plus a large enough return to allow for power outage or you will have a very wet floor

[swampy1972]

Hi Kath,

Here's a link that may help. It specialises in marine but that's just a baffle layout consideration as they don't use media like freshwater, rather sand pits, live rock and algae. I hope you find some pointers in there. ;)

http://www.melevsreef.com/allmysumps.html

[ILLUSN]

theres no such thing as too much filtration just remember its the contact time not the flowrate that maximises biofiltration assuming 450L per tank that gives 1350L of water you want to turn that over 2-3x an hour (no less then 3x if they are hevily stocked grow out tank) so you need a pump that flows 2700-3750L/h if you use the guide of 1L of media/100L of water you get 13.5L (I'd double this just to be safe 4x it if your going to have hevily stocked growout tanks) of media so your minimum requirement is a sump that flows at 2700-3750L/hour that holds 13.5L-52L oif media.

now remember a 25mm pipe flows at ~2500L/h so you'll need dual 25m pipes to keep uo with the flow.

[Mr Wild]

mmm almost sorry I asked ! lol

It's going to take some time to sink in, but I think I have got it.

swampy looked through the thread very interesting.

Jothy - you have got me really thinking!

Cheers