Sump or no sump? | Tidal Gardens Mail Bag 

The sump is the heart of the system 😊

I agree with a larger sump. Flexibility and being able to see all of your equipment to understand when there are problems is huge. Can’t imagine having a compact sump that requires rearranging equipment to service

Totally agree, on the next tank build my sump and equipment will not be under the tank and I will think about space to access all of it.

My ideal system would be a display tank, a display sump with all the goodies in a room behind 😊

You are so right.. I have a 72 gallon bow front in the wall display with a fish room.. and I spend more time in the fish room behind the tank instead of in front of it.. literally I was just telling my son about this earlier today..

If that is the case , then I would argue that a longer stand than the display stand is what is needed . I have a 4x2x2 , 120 gallon display stand that sits on a 6ft stand . In this longer than the display stand , I used a 3x1.5x1.5ft sump , it has room for a Supermarine sm250 skimmer , various reactor and dosing pump . The remaining space in that stand has a 5 gallon bucket for ato connected to an external kalkwasser reactor . Dosing pump container took up the still spacious area of the stand . I do have some space in that longer stand that sometimes I hide various purchases in it . Everything that is needed for this 120 gallon tank to function is in this 6ft stand , only the chiller is located outside of this 6ft stand .

Anyway we can get an update with and on Becka’s tanks . Thank you

I'm setting up a new 150 gallon aquarium in my living room. I would love to have a huge sump set up with all the equipment in a another room behind the display. Unfortunately that room is my bedroom and i don't think my spouse would go for that. So I'm left fitting what i can under the display. I have 5 feet to work with so it should fit most of the stuff. I can always build an additional cabinet next to the display

Yeah Help US understand this topic!!!

Planning on getting back into the hobby soon, and this was a nice outlook on what I should be thinking about. Ty

Good points, it’s a balance of maximizing sump footprint while making sure you have enough space around it for those other items. Building a 180 6’ tank and opted for a 44” sump instead of 60” to help this balance.

I honestly love the idea of more room for maintenance, even if that sacrifices display space.

I’m currently saving up for the biggest sump I can find from brs. It doesn’t matter how organized I get the sump, it always becomes a mess. Moving equipment, changing out equipment, electric lines, dosing lines, shifting things around just so I can vacuum out detritus, it always gets tangled. And then I put off doing things that need to be done. Anything that makes maintenance more accessible is a win in my book.

The age old thought is that if something is easy to do it will get done. Thus work space is important in my opinion.

My new tank is a 40 Breeder with 20 Gallon long Sump with plenty of room to upgrade

Coming from 15yrs of freshwater, to salt 3 years ago, I had NO idea the power of a sump. I way over feed (established tank) and I still need to ADD nitrates for the corals, its nuts. I have a 90g with a 30g sump under it. I wish the sump was bigger for sure, purely for maintenance, but even with super heavy feeding, pulling the cheato down to almost nothing, and running my skimmer 12hr per day (going to reduce even more), Im having issues keeping my nitrates over 2ppm. Ive started dosing nitrates 10ml per day as well and Im FINALLY starting to see them climb slowly... up to 2ppm from

This is a fantastic topic to get into. I know I went through a similar debate with my current Reef tank. It's on the second floor, in a loft. So I set a hard limit of 100 gallons total. I finally settled on a 75 gallon display with a 30 gallon sump; that runs about 90 total gallons. But, I belabored that debate for months with no clear answer. As for the future, I'm in the build process of my next tank as we speak. First up, it's going to the basement and a concrete floor with no practical weight concern or flood risk. The new custom 72x36x20"H 220 gallon tank is sitting on a 30"H aluminum stand (directly inspired by your farm), and there is a second smaller stand attached forming an "L" shape for my current 75 gallon tank to join it; both will be plumbed into the same sump. Both displays will be in what will become my future office/man cave and the 70 gallon sump will sit behind the wall in a stairwell closet on a much shorter stand. I also like that having two displays will allow me to focus on one large SPS dominant tank, and a smaller LPS dominated tank; catering to the difference in flow and light, but I'll still have only one set of filtration and dosing solutions. It's still about 2 years out from being complete on my budget, but a lot of the design was greatly informed by taking notes of your systems, Reef Bum's, BRS's and a host of other content creators who thankfully share your lessons learned; so hobbiest's like me don't have to learn them the hard way. Thank you for the wonderful insight, and the well informed debates.

A sump to me is really like a car airbag. I keep them on my displays because they could be the savior to any contamination by diluting contaminants as well as providing a more available amount of nutrients.

I always say , Don't take dump without a big sump 😊. I know I need a life 😊

in hindsight....after two years since setting up my system, I would go with a larger sump. can you do a video of a visit to your friends house you mentioned in the video? that would be awesome!

The style with most aquarium systems is to have a stand that is the same size as the tank above for a clean aesthetic. I prefer to have a stand with a larger footprint than the tank above it, it gives you more room for gear in the stand, and a nice ledge to set stuff on when your working on the tank . But you don’t want it too big, you don’t want to have a shelf collecting junk around your tank taking away from it.

I don't think you have seen one of my tanks...the Acro tank Than? No sump and as simple as it gets. Everything easy to reach clean and maintain. Not so much of an eye sore as you would think. Very successful with large colonies. I use to be absolute sump no matter what...but 20 years later I try everything for no sump.

Depends on what your goal is. If it’s ease of maintenance and access, larger sump area it is. If it’s maximum tank space for both viewing and room for fish and corals, sump isn’t really needed or doesn’t have to be overly large if you’d prefer to have one. When I’ve needed the tank to be flush against a wall, sump wins. When space not as much of an issue, doesn’t matter much either way. I prefer overall more viewing space and room for fish and corals. Currently have 75g mixed reef with Aquaclear 110 hanging off side of tank and larger wavemaker pump on opposite side of tank. Since I don’t like to see equipment when possible, heater is horizontal tucked up under filter output. All works like a charm

imo it depends on what you want out of the hobby. If you want to watch a little piece of the ocean indoors, in your home, your priority is on the display. My oldest system is running on a canister filter, grows both chaeto and prolifera inside the display in spots that I've picked for them, with an in tank skimmer, and grows coral from xenia to acro with no issues. If you want to have that clean in-tank appearance, and want to really up your stocking level of fish, then you want a sump that will allow you to have a bigger skimmer, and at least one refugium to grow out macro without seeing any of that in the tank. If you want to really go all-in on the chemistry maintenance to never have any question as to what your levels are, or just have a high level of automation, then the bigger the sump the better.

I’ve ran the same tank sumpless and then drilled the same tank added sump. The best I’ve had was no sump or filter just wave makers and a skimmer coral never looked so good also zero water changes in all 3 of my reef tanks

My approach always has been to purchase as large of a system as your budget allows mainly for stability of the water parameters. This time around I purchased a nano tank and stand from a box pet store. If I decided to do another tank I would go with a 75-90 gallon tank then design a modular equipment cabinet with a wet side for a large sump with room to accommodate the biological filtration, refugium, skimmer, plumbing & other wet equipment. I would also have a dry side for lighting control, tool storage, electronics such as an Apex or Hydros systems, automated parameter testing & dosing equipment. I would also want the cabinet to be accessible from from two sides as well. I have outgrown the amount of space avail. inside my current cabinet. I have started utilizing the outside of the cabinet to mount equipment as tastefully as possible. I will most likely end up upgrading at some point here in the next year or so. I forsee the hobby moving towards more user friendly automation to make the hobby more appealing and less complicated to more people who may not necessarily understand the science involved with reef keeping.

Just curious if you can tell me where you buy your T Slot Bars from?

I would definitely go with a 40 gallon breeder and for a sump same 40 gallon sump for the price of 1 dollar per gallon or even retail it’s so much better with a sump bigger filteration area, a bigger skimmer ect.. some of these all in one tanks are overpriced and small back filter area and you must use there filter socks, and some don’t always have room for skimmers.

Never really gave it much thinking, current have a 270lt with a 100lt sump.

I’m starting to think Than wants a 60g sump with no display

No sump, yes biology and chemistry

In my opinion, a sump approximately 40% the size of the aquarium would be ideal for starting a project that would allocate plenty of biology and, above all, facilitate daily maintenance. 👍🐟🐠

Gotta be sump my sump is 4ft like my tank

Plumb to sewer line.

Sump water volume isn’t important to me as long as it’s sufficient for filtration What I care about is SPACE for equipment

Can corals be fat? That guys corals look heavy duty.

Sump all day

No sump. The "need" for a sump, skimmer, uv... are the biggest myths in reefing.

Larger sumps are always great because then you don't need a bypass valve for when the power goes off. You can just have the tank drain into the sump and not worry about any flooding.