sump questions

ok i got a free 30L and dont really feel like cleaning it so i thought i would be a good sump tank for my 100g african tank. was wandering what would be a good pump and where is a good place to get an overflow or would it be hard to build one. will probably put fish in the sump tank to help speed up bacteria growth.

thanks
justin

An overflow for a tank that size is about $65. I will say the design is fairly simple and you could easily build one out of acrylic. Just get the correct sized bulkheads for the overflow box and go from there. I made a makeshift one from a power filter. It was one of the larger ones and I cut a hole in it and used that as an overflow. It worked OK but the pre made overflow box I got later flows much better and makes much less noise.

As for pumps, depending on the flow you are looking for you can either go below the rated return on the overflow OR and this is what I suggest go above the the rated return of the overflow and simply install a valve to set the output from the pump. When buying a pump look at what flow it is rated for and take note that most pumps show flow at 0 head so if you are pumping the water up 4/5+ feet into a take (taking into account vert/horz pipe and bends) the 700GPH could turn into 4-500.
Also depending on how much you are looking to spend you can often buy a "pond" pump for half the price of an "aquarium" pump and they both do the same thing! Just make sure the pump is rated for the temp your tank will be at.

You can add fish anywhere in the system the water is going to flow through the whole thing anyways. If you wanted to cycle the sump fastest just place established biomedia at the top of the bio filter stack and let it get rinsed off and through the rest of the filter.

Bump I was searching this as well

drs foster and smith sell overflow boxes and pump pretty reasonably. I have been looking into having a refugium on the front of the 75 gallon tank and sumps to have refugiums so I can get shrimp acclimated and have a mini tank without having to worry about water quality as much.

Dave

I would looking into a mag 9.5 or similar but the restiction is how much you can drain. Depends on How big your drain bulkhead are and how many you have.

On mine 100g I have two 1" drains. I use a mag5 and mag7 together in the setup. It Moves about 800gph at 4' head height