A sump is nothing more than an extra water containment area usually set up underneath an aquarium where you can place equipment, provide the aquarium with various types of water filtration, add top-off water to the tank and perform other maintenance tasks. From the simple single chamber design to the more complex multi-chambered setups, sumps are quite versatile. Just take a look at some of these DIY examples.
- Dog’s sump set up has a prefilter pad with bio ball chamber and complete live sand refugium incorporated into it.
- Peter Z.’s sump design is three-chambered, with the middle chamber containing bio-media for biological filtration.
What Are the Benefits of Having a Sump?
- It makes an ideal place to put a protein skimmer, heater, and other equipment such as a calcium or nitrate reactor because you don’t figure out inventive ways to hide all this stuff when hung on the outside or placed inside an aquarium, and it saves on space.
- It is an ideal place to put bio-media for biological filtration, as well as perform additional mechanical and chemical filtration.
- It is the perfect place for dosing supplements. Topping off tank water and adding limewater (a.k.a. kalkwasser/calcium) or other additives to a reef tank goes hand in hand with a sump because one of the dosing methods most often used by aquarists for introducing limewater into the tank is done by way of the water in the sump. This is usually accomplished by using a slow drip water top-off set-up, or an auto-doser or a metering pump.
- It adds additional beneficial tank water volume to your system.
- It can provide additional aeration to your system.
- It can contribute to improved quality of the aquarium water.
- When set up properly, it can act as a backup water overflow system if the power fails.
- Add the DIY Auto Top Off to your sump to eliminate the hassle of repetitive top offs. Assembling and installing the auto-top-off on your aquarium system takes less than an hour and costs less than $50.00 for the parts. It won’t take long for you to conclude that it is one of the best upgrades you have ever done to your tank and you should have done it a long time ago.
When running a reef system, some people find that bio-media in a wet/dry trickle filter becomes unnecessary when adequate live rock is provided for biological filtration. For this reason, some aquarists choose to remove the bio media and convert the trickle filter into a plain sump for holding carbon or use it as a water reservoir/top-off area.
Do You Need a Sump?
It is a personal choice of whether to have a sump or not, but with the many benefits that one can provide your system, along with how easy it really is to put together, why not?
Here are some more DIY Sump Projects & Plans you can use to build your own. You can also see what is available on the market in the Top Wet/Dry Filters.
