Advice for DIY sump

[apelliot08]

ok. so i got my tank finally! which means it's time to start working on it and i'm going to have a lot of q's. I helped my gf set hers up and i do a good job with cleaning it, top offs, feeding, siphoning, and so on. But her's is a bc29, so it was pretty much ready to go. I picked up a 72 bow front with a 20 gallon tank for the sump, and the stand. the 72 is RR. and i have a mag 7 for the return.
so here's the q. i was going to do three compartments for the sump. first being live rock, second being the skimmer and the third the return. is there any information or any how to's you guys might recomend? or any tricks you think would make it better?

[David Grigor]

Only use 1 bottom up baffle between the return and the skimmer. Skimmer being on the side closest to where the incoming water is. This is so the skimmer compartment will also stay the same water level making it more consistant and not effected by evaporation levels. If you don't have the skimmer picked out yet, get the skimmer first then make the baffle so you don't make it too large or too small.

Skip the liverock in the sump. 20g High is limited on space. Better to use that area for a better/bigger skimmer. You should have enough LR in the show tank for filtration.

In most cases, no need for any other baffles. If you do just make a top down baffle ( bubble trap ) near the return pump. That should do it.

You can silicone in glass or aryclic. For this purpose doesn't really matter.

[gogregerson]

+1 on skipping the live rock in the sump. I just creates a detritus trap.

[benihana]

Another vote for skipping the LR in the sump

I would also reccomend to make the return area as large as possible as this is where your evap will happen

[David Grigor]

I would also reccomend to make the return area as large as possible as this is where your evap will happen

Correct. This is why I recommend getting the skimmer in advance. Can tailor the ( bottom up ) baffle so the skimmer compartment doesn't have any wasted space and keep the evaporation compartment as large as possible. Height of that baffle is determined by the optimum level for the skimmer model your using. But also can build a custom stand for the skimmer to elevate it if you want sump level to go deeper. Just so long as the skimmer will still fit the height of the stand.

When using a glass tank and silicone the baffles ( acrylic or glass ), you can always redo it later ( after 24hour cure time ) if you get another skimmer etc. later down the line.

[Flounder]

Use glass. Acrylic or plexi for me was rather bendy and actually made the sides where the silicone was leak due to the pressure. I do have LR in my sump. Only cause there was a really cool piece that I wanted to use in my display and couldnt find room. Once I do it will be all ready....but other than that my sump has 5 inches of sand and cheato. I would do two baffels. One seperating the skimmer from the cheato and the other seperating the return from the cheato. I did one at first and got sick of cleaning out the pumps daily.
*Now its every other day :)

[Dhummel]

ok...so wrong or right ???
i just added some big pieces to the skimmer side of my sump, placed on eggcrate off the bottom, i also have a MJ600 sure flow to add flow to that side, no settlement at all. i did that for more filteration.