madmark285

For my sumps, I put a large baffle seal to the bottom of the tank to control the water level. So on my sump shown below: The wall labeled T-34 controls the water height in the filter section of the sump ie: the water is always this height. As water evaporates, the water level in the reservoir section (where the return pump is located) drops. I want the reservoir section big as possible, this is where I do water changes. A significant amount of water flows back into my reservoir section when the pump is off shown below: It is ~3 inches between on&off (this is a 20 gallon tank). The reservoir section on my first sump was way too small, I could only go ~5 days before I had to add water due to evaporation. Note: microbubbles are not an issue with FW hence protein skimmers are very difficult to implement in FW. And about the heater in a coffin box, I put that in case I forget to unplug the heater when I do a water change. I can add cold water to the reservoir section and just let the heater warm up the water before I turn on the pump.

My first sump had 2 foam blocks in to shown below: Not sure why I have the fine foam block first but this was a disaster, too much water resistance. The water just overflow the foam blocks and went into the pump chamber. And I hated cleaning them. I give this sump a F for failed! Below is a screenshot of Cory's DIY Aquarium Sump Filter: Instead of the up/down water flow, he has the water flow horizontally thru the foam pads. He did not use filter socks. If you redo your walls and want quiet, slope your last wall to eliminate the waterfall into the pump section. I copied this idea from HOB filters, a water slide! My tiger barbs love sliding down it 🙂

I have 2 14" socks in my 40 gallon, I plan on using 4 14" socks for my 75 gallon tank. I may be able to go a couple weeks before washing! Then I remember the nitrates factory debates in the reefing world ie: all that organic material breaking down into ammonia->nitrites->nitrates.. I may have to rethink that one, remove organic waste before it breaks down. Yes, PVC is easy to work with and offer more options for sumps. I am struggling with K1 media dams forming at the exit weir. My solution, just drill a couple hundred holes in the wall section and let the water flow horizontally into the next chamber. That's easy with PVC, would be hard with glass. I screwed up and had to lower wall height using my sump tweaking tool 🙂 That made a big mess!

Sorry, I miss that line. Anyways, You could use silicone to attach the pipes to the bottom then drill some holes in the pipe so the water exits on the top of your 1st chamber. The just add ceramic rings or even gravel in that section for more bio filtration. Just an idea...

I was debating on making something similar to this using PVC trim material from Home Depot. For redundancy, it should have 2 siphon tubes just in case.

If your socks are going into the chamber on the left, I combined the filter socks and fluidized bed section by using 4" thin wall PVC pipe shown below: So the pipes protect the socks from the moving K1 media.

Yep, that's them. The dough is similar to croissants, roll it out and add a layer of butter. The you roll it out and fold it multiple times to create thin layers of butter in the dough. Lots of work 🙂

My personal favorite which I make every Christmas, Cherry danish. Yep, making the dough is alot of work but danish still warm from the oven is so good.

The cheap PVC ball value shown below can be very difficult to turn over time. I would use a gate value such as ProLine Stop Valve PVC. Just remember, a 1" PVC pipe at full siphon has flow rate over 500 gph (the actually value depends on the height). So 3/4" PVC pipe for drains is plenty big enough. For my home sump pump, I use 1 1/2" pipe or hose.

In our talks, I keep forgetting you had reef tanks in the past. Got any pictures of your sump? What kind of bio filter are you using?

I never master using a peel, 1/2 the pepperoni end up in flames on the bottom of the oven. I use an aluminum pizza pan which I place on top of the hot stone. After a few minutes when the crust starts to cook, I slide the pizza off the pan on to the stone. When done, I just remove the stone with the pizza on it, it will continue to cook the crust.

Try pizzamaking.com , here one for New York style pizza. When I make them, I make 20 ounce dough balls which is perfect for my pans size. Most of the recipes there will say how much for one pizza. For cold rising in the refrigerator, I use 1/2 sheet commercial pans with a plastic cover. Letting the dough slowly ferment a few days in the fridge improves the flavor for all breads.

For myself, I learn how to bake in a restaurant and donut shop. I don't have the patience to knead dough by hand. The pizza dough recipe I use says knead the dough for a full 15 minutes, that's a long time. I even made a proofing box using PVC sheets.

A Kitchen Aid mixer with a dough hook solves that problem. Get a scale and use recipes by weight, baking become so easy with little mess. Just weigh and mix in the mixer bowl.

Wow, that sucks. Just curious but systems like Tier 5-Stage Certified Ultra Safe Reverse Osmosis Drinking Water Filter System are not viable? After setting up the 40 gallon tank, a 75 gallon Mbuna tank may be in order. they love hard water 🙂

You can start cycling by using the sump and some Dr Tim’s Aquatics Ammonium. I have some K1 media in a 5 gallon bucket which I dose as needed.

As someone once said to me: the easier your tank is to maintain, the better chance you will maintain it. This is so true for me. Using 5 gallon buckets is not an easy system to use, I strongly suggest you figure out your water change system. For sumps, I recommend making the reservoir section large as possible and use it for water changes. Just drain the sump and refill with cold tap water and let the heater warm it up. For my 75 gallon tank on large water changes, I use a 20 gallon tank to warm and condition the water and then top off the sump with tap water. I did add a 32 gallon Brute garbage can as recommended by anewbie this fall. I put a heater in it which I only turn on the night before making water changes.

From AQUAHOLICS AQUARIUM And from Aquarium Science So doing the math: You need 1 gallon of K1 media for a 100 gallon tank and the size of your fluidized bed filter should be .221 cubic feet. So to be safe, lets just add a factor of 2 ie: 1 gallon of K1 media for a 50 gallon tank. So using a 20/29 gallon tank for a sump, water level ~1 foot high, your fluidized bed compartment should be 12" x 12" x 2.6". That seem very small compared to the systems you see on youtube. Any comments, I hope I got my math correct.

For CO2, Mmiller2001 uses a Yugang reactor which I thought was very cool.

For quiet, the Hebie drain system works very well:

I just bought the Orlushy DC-5000 pump, they had a black friday sale and I got it for $60. I just got it day, no reviews yet. For quiet operation, a very knowledgeable person recommend a DC powered pump.

I have a DIY sump on a 40 gallon breeder shown below: The sump is a 20 gallon tank and was made with 1/4" PVC material from Home Depot and 4" thin wall PVC pipe for the sock holders. I kind of screwed up this design, the fluidized bed section should have been larger. There is a much better way to make one using the above materials, I working on another one for my 75 gallon tank. If interested, send me a message. Mark

That's an excellent point concerning the Matrix media which I regret buying, it was an impulse decision. Matrix may require clean water to work effectively long term and may be best used in pressure filters ie: canisters. I do have some plastic scrub pads which I am conditioning, those may be a better option for what I am doing. The HOB shown has minimal mechanical filtration but it still is highly effective, it is rated at 100 microns. It just has to be replaced/cleaned more often than large sponges. You may have noticed with me, I like to build or tinker with filters. I have the material so I am going try installing a large felt pad in my Tidal (no basket). I want to try using some K1 media, is a fluidized/moving bed filter feasible? Thanks so much for your feedback, you raise some excellent points for me to think about. Mark

Yep, that how it should work but does it really matter? The debris may/will just move thru the course Matrix media. Another issue, the bio-filter will still be working when the felt pad gets plugged up. If you put the felt pad first then the water will overflow on the top and rush to the exit when it gets plugged up. I could add a course sponge in the water intake section of the Tidal. Sidenote: I screwed up my first sump, I was unaware of the existence of filter socks. So with a kludge modification, I added filter socks after the fluidized bed filter shown below. Same thing, the socks should go first. Surprisingly, it actually worked quite well. The debris would get churned up in the fluidized bed then dumped into the socks. Note: I ended up removing one of the walls in the above sump. And making it out of cellular PVC was a bad idea, it is slightly porous. This sump is being rebuilt using a 29 gallon tank.

I don't like disposable nor am I a big fan of sponges. I love felt filter socks which are so easy to clean, just toss them in the washing machine. So when I wash them, just toss in the felt pads. The 100 micron 24” x 36” felt pad cost me $14 and i should be good for a few years on filter material.