Sump on the side

[Samfoy]

Is there a reason why we can't put a sump on the side of the tank? So the tank and the sump are side by side on one long table top.

[Coinee]

From a practical perspective, sumps usually work best when you have gravity feed it down then you pump it back up. Otherwise you're pumping water both ways which is inefficient. I'm sure you could do it without much issue if you really wanted to. 

[Samfoy]

I was trying to think of a way to spread the weight of all the materials to run a tank. I want to start a tank in my new study/man cave upstairs and not sure all the weight in one spot will work. This will hamper my tank size, so placement is an issue.

 

[MainelyReefer]

6 hours ago, Coinee said:

From a practical perspective, sumps usually work best when you have gravity feed it down then you pump it back up. Otherwise you're pumping water both ways which is inefficient. I'm sure you could do it without much issue if you really wanted to. 

Gravity could feed a sump that is kept at the same level as the DT, this is how AIO’s operate so if you designed it similarly but just imagine the rear chambers as their own tank it just means you would have to have a slightly taller DT or just keep the water level in the sump lower which would likely be the case anyways.

[ReefGoat]

What size tank are we talking here? 

[Matteo]

6 hours ago, ReefGoat said:

What size tank are we talking here? 

This^

 

A sump on the side just sounds messy looking? unless you made it really cool with mangroves or something

[Jeff Hood]

Agree with above posters.  You need a flow gradient from display to the sump.  The water pumped from your sump on the side would need to fall via gravity back to the sump.  The AIO example is a perfect one.  You could even drill both tanks in the side and connect with bulkheads and screens.  Pump in the sump side will force the gradient to form.  The issue as some mentioned is how it would look.  I think a display refugium/ Sump could be really cool.  

     As for water level, as long as your bulkheads or overflow is big enough you could keep them both full as the gradient caused by the pump would be equalized very quickly and wouldn’t need a large pressure gradient to flow.  

[Tamberav]

15 hours ago, Samfoy said:

Is there a reason why we can't put a sump on the side of the tank? So the tank and the sump are side by side on one long table top.

 

If the sump is taller you can put it on the side since you can still run gravity as a return.

[Beer]

My 1/2 gallon pico and the 3.7 gallon that replaced it both had stand behind sumps. I referred to them as AIT (All In Two).

 

The pico had a sump that was shorter. I bult a corner overflow and drilled for two drains (one emergency) and a return. The sump had three chambers: inflow/heater; refugium/sand bed; return section. Made an ATO and heater controller for it as well. I miss running this as weekly 100% water changes were super simple. I’d feed 1/2-1 cube of frozen a day with no issues as long as I didn’t go more than a few weeks without water changes and didn’t miss water chances for multiple cycles in a row.

 

The 3.7 had a sump made from coraplast (couragated plastic, like lawn signs). I notched the back wall to have an almost coast to coast overflow. Outside the tank, I built an angled piece to drain into a sluce box that directed flow to the left side of the sump. The sump flow was left to right with two small return pumps that fed either side of the tank. The sump was bigger than the tank on that one.

 

 

You could build the sump taller and pump water from the tank to the sump. If you have a refugium with the intent of feeding the tank, this would prevent the pods from having to go through the pump on their way to the tank.

 

I live in a small studio apartment and didn’t want to replace a dresser with a stand (not to mention that the tanks were too small to justify their own stand), so these solutions allowed me to utilize existing furniture while maximizing the usage of space behind the tanks that would have been wasted. It definately distributes the weight better, but most nano’s don’t really have a concern about weight distribution, even with a sump, as two average Americans standing next to each other would have a higher load distribution in a similar footprint (though the people’s weight would be concentrated in a smaller area compared to a tank on a stand)