Freshwater Sumps: Worth it? Best Part?

[Fish Folk]

Over the past year, we've really enjoyed watching some good videos on building and using Freshwater Sumps with larger aquariums. Corvus Oscen (aka Joel) has some excellent videos he put out a while ago. At our LFS, the 125 gal tank they sell plants out of has a freshwater sump. We've never used one before. Most of our tanks are small, and we haven't really been motivated to try drilling tanks, etc. But it struck me that perhaps there are some advantages I've just not been aware of. For example, can a sump be set up to crunch nitrates so well that water changes can slow down significantly? 

So . . . for those who've tried them, are they worth it? And what have you found to be the best part? 

Edited January 11, 2021 by Fish Folk

[Andy's Fish Den]

I do like using a sump on a larger tank. I have used them on saltwater tanks and I have one on my 93 cube tank, and if I would do another large tank, I would put one on. Depending on how you design it, you can put lots of biological filtration material in it that will help a lot, especially if you have larger fish. Joel does have several good videos on the sumps he uses, and I know of at least one on the co-op channel that was about the sump they built for the 800 gallon. Also, depending on how you lay it out, you may be able to include an area to put plant trimmings, fry grow out or any number of things. 

[AdamTill]

Not sure I loved mine.

I did a 20 long on a 90. Beananimal overflow on a coast to coast.

VERY expensive to setup correctly, with all the plumbing, overflows and pumps. A little fussy to tune at first, then okay. Pain to keep fishing small animals out of the sump, even getting creative with weir guards etc. Many dead otos for example.

Servicing the sump was about as much, if not a little more work than a canister filter.

The stable water level in the display tank and having basically unlimited media room were nice, but the money to do it wasn’t worth it. Plus then you lose all the utility of the stand for storing things.

I don’t think a “normal” (ie, 125 gal or less) tank can be effectively setup for annoxic filtration such that it reduces water changes. Would be happy to be empirically proved wrong.

Edited January 11, 2021 by AdamTill

[Fish Folk]

8 minutes ago, AdamTill said:

annoxic filtration

Anoxic filtration: (googling....) 

http://www.mankysanke.co.uk/html/anoxic_filtration.html

*Sigh* will I ever emerge from this Nermhole??!! 
🤭🤪🤣🤣🤣

[AdamTill]

12 minutes ago, Fish Folk said:

Anoxic filtration: (googling....) 

http://www.mankysanke.co.uk/html/anoxic_filtration.html

*Sigh* will I ever emerge from this Nermhole??!! 
🤭🤪🤣🤣🤣

Eventually, but why rush lol? It’s an interesting concept, but much money and time has been spent by people trying to accomplish it with minimal success. All to save about 30 mins a week with a Python or similar 

[gardenman]

In theory, if you add a planted freshwater refugium with the right substrate (typically fairly deep) and adequate lighting to a sump, you can pretty much eliminate water changes. Or so some say. The theory is you can leave the refugium light on 24/7 to keep the plants actively absorbing nitrates nonstop and that the minerals in the soil used will replace the trace elements the plants and fish need. The deep mud bed will harbor the bacteria that consume nitrates and will release nitrogen gas and oxygen. Real world results, at least from people not selling the specialized substrates, seem mixed at best. Most people claim there's little to no difference, while a few claim great results. I've toyed with eliminating all of my filters and placing one large sump in the basement to handle all of the filtration, except for the quarantine tank. My upstairs tanks have been in the same locations for twenty plus years, so they don't get moved a lot. Plumbing it all up wouldn't be terribly hard and drilling the holes in the floor doesn't really bother me, but the risks (big leak, broken pump, etc.) make it less than ideal, I've pretty much just opted to go with very heavily planted tanks instead and that's working out very well for me. A pump to move the water from the refugium back upstairs to the tanks would need to be quite powerful (about a twelve foot lift) and it's just not worth the trouble for me.

If I ever get the stuff to play with I might try building a really long DIY HOB with a refugium and light built into one of the chambers. Even a big HOB these days is typically about 18" wide, but on a 55 gallon tank you've got more like 46" of space available. Use a pump in the tank to supply the HOB with water, then have mechanical filtration at the start, then biofiltration (fluidized k1 media perhaps) then the refugium, then a final mechanical filtration stage to remove any plant debris and finally a really fine water polishing stage before it flows back into the tank. A typical HOB is about 4" deep (front to back) so if you make the multi-chamber HOB 4" deep but say 44" long and a foot deep (top to bottom) you get a lot of potential filtering area to play with and not use up any more space than you already use. 

[Daniel]

I wrestled with some of these ideas a while back when thinking about how to design my large aquarium in my livingroom. Ultimately, instead of a separate sump, for all practical purposes like @gardenman suggests I put the sump/refugium inside the aquarium. That is given enough room in the aquarium, I just added more plants. In the end the planted interior of the aquarium is the filter and the only filter. I am not sure how small an aquarium can support this but after more than decade of living with this method of (non)filtration in a larger aquarium I can say I am happy with the results and would make the same choice if given a chance to do this over again.

[Fish Folk]

23 minutes ago, Daniel said:

the planted interior of the aquarium is the filter and the only filter

So... no external filtration whatsoever? Daniel, sir, you were already a legend. But this??? Lost for words... so awesome! 

[Daniel]

3 minutes ago, Fish Folk said:

So... no external filtration whatsoever? 

Yes, there is no external filtration whatsoever. In a way that is not that special. The fish we keep live in unfiltered swamps, creeks, ponds, lakes, and rivers. It likely that the size of these bodies of water plus the way these bodies of water are connected to the ecosystem that they are part of reduces the need for external filtration. 

As aquarist we often filter for cosmetic reasons or because the fear of doing something 'wrong' in a biological system who foundational principles are new or unfamiliar. Sometimes as aquarist we filter for the feeling of additional control, but the majority of biological filtration in a planted aquarium comes from the interactions of the plants and the commensal bacteria that live on them.

It was definitely possible that the big aquarium I setup could have just gone done in flames if I had greatly miscalculated what would happen in a planted aquarium of its size. As it has turned out, the aquarium has been the most stable lowest maintenance aquarium I have ever had. That doesn't mean that my reasoning about filtration in this aquarium was correct because any success could also be due the luck. It does show that it is possible to run a densely planted, reasonably stocked community aquarium without any external filtration.

 

[Fish Folk]

14 minutes ago, Daniel said:

It does show that it is possible to run a densely planted, reasonably stocked community aquarium without any external filtration.

This was what brought up the original question about sumps. Could it be that a large sump of sufficient size and densely planted might resolve the typical rhythm of tank maintenance? (i.e. removal of nitrates, etc.) 

[Brandy]

17 minutes ago, Fish Folk said:

This was what brought up the original question about sumps. Could it be that a large sump of sufficient size and densely planted might resolve the typical rhythm of tank maintenance? (i.e. removal of nitrates, etc.) 

I hate to admit this, but I am still waiting for those fabled nitrates everyone keeps talking about. I have overstocked bare bottom growouts with just water lettuce, duckweed, and hornwort and a small corner sponge filter, and I still have to fertilize. Now, they are ugly and messy (no pretty scape), but they don't get high nitrates...ever. Unless I get crazy with the fertilizer, I can't even find nitrates.

I have noticed that the 3 cichlids are MESSY eaters, and that probably is a factor, most of my fish are not.

[Daniel]

38 minutes ago, Fish Folk said:

This was what brought up the original question about sumps. Could it be that a large sump of sufficient size and densely planted might resolve the typical rhythm of tank maintenance? (i.e. removal of nitrates, etc.) 

I think it depends on what you want to answer to be. Many aquarist successfully run sumps especially on the saltwater side of the world so sumps clearly serve a useful purpose. But an ever increasing increasing trend in reef aquarium keeping has been to use a macroalgae like Chaetomorpha in a refugium to remove nitrates. 

As freshwater aquarist we already do that as we have the luxury of growing our nitrate consuming macrophytes (otherwise known as plants) directly in our aquariums without the need to resort to a seperate aquarium (the refugium) to grow nitrate consuming plants. It would be redundant.

There is also an element of liking gear. I have plenty of aquarium gear like my Neptune Apex system that I own just because I think it is cool. If running a sump increases your fishkeeping pleasure then sumps are a very good thing.

[Fish Folk]

6 minutes ago, Daniel said:

There is also an element of liking gear.

Nah! Less gear is more satisfying on our end. But spending time all weekend . . . even parceled throughout the week . . . changing water gets old. Even with python that works great! Definitely appreciate the "more plants + deeper substrate" approach. 

This place still sets the gold standard: