what is the benifit of having a sump?

In my case, fresh water for the dogs.

1) Larger volume of water in the system.
2) Can keep a lot of equipment in the sump that would otherwise be in the tank.
3) Possibly better arrangement of filter media, and larger volume of media.
4) Easy to take water for testing, and add chemicals to the water. The additives (fertilizer, dechlor... ) get pretty well diluted before they get into the tank.
5) Water level in the aquarium stays the same. The evaporation is noticed by less volume in the sump. With the water level staying up high in the tank there is no mineral build up where you can see it. (The rim of the tank hides it)
6) The sump can be planted as a refugium. House plants grow well in a setting like that, if you can give them the light they need. Great filtration!

You also get high levels of oxygen and you can place heaters and whatnot in the sump, reducing equipment in the tank.


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MUCH easier to maintain then any other filtration system, they are also easy to customize and cheap to make. If your pump goes out, you replace the pump, not the entire system.

what are the steps to make your own sump

There are tons of Youtube videos on how to make them. They are used primarily in saltwater setups, so don't skip those videos. Type it into google too. Once you figure out how you want it set up (which is the hardest part) then making it is easy.

sorry to hijack, but I have read that with sump, you get beter co2 dissolved. How is that possible?

sealed sumps off gas less co2 than open sumps. becomes like a reactor if u have a truely sealed sump.

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A fully sealed sump is a canister by definition. It doesn't off gas as much as some think although you do use more co2

jakevwapp84 said:

what are the steps to make your own sump

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Type in DIY sump in your Google search box. There's about a million threads, Youtube videos, etc.

where can i find a canister filter for a 20 gallon tank i think a canister is the way to go

Look at the true aqua line, the df 200 will be perfect, if you want to spend a bit more the Ada 600 series will be ever more perfect

http://www.truaqua.com/aquatop-canister-filter-ef-200.html#ReviewHeader

im looking at this one what do you think

Seems like the reviews for it are pretty good

it says use in a 20 gallon isnt recommended what do you think is 216 GPH to much?

Once you add media to the filter it decreases a bit, I use a 200 on a 17 gallon tank very successfully.

Can't argue with only $50 a sump runs about that before the pump if you make it elaborate. Although all you need are filter socks a 10g and some lava rock for a good sump lol.

shrimpNewbie said:

Can't argue with only $50 a sump runs about that before the pump if you make it elaborate. Although all you need are filter socks a 10g and some lava rock for a good sump lol.

Click to expand...

Im about there without the pump for the one im building. (20g sump for 60g tank)

Only other thing that I can think of as a plus for a sump is that the can be adaptable to whatever sized tank you have/upgrade to. The 20g sump I'm building for my 60g tank may be a little overkill to some people. But if I do get a bigger tank, it should be able to handle propbably up to a 100g tank.