Sump for 400l Tank

The following post discusses doing an overflow without having to drill a hole or risk flooding. I've already built this overflow (For less than a R100 and maybe 30 Minutes of effort) and tested it and I have zero issues with it:
DIY Overflow and sump Using - Professor Dirk Bellstedt Designs

That's a bit of a stretch - They are completely different. A Sump can hide your equipment, add more water volume making the whole system more stable, add a separate hatchery and will in general do a better job of filtering your water if set up correctly. It is also easier to clean. If you keep your filter media in a bag of some sort, lift out the bag, rinse in tank water and put back. that's it - No need to disconnect or turn anything off.

In my opinion, the only advantage canisters have is the fact that they are more compact. That might just be me, and I'm perfectly happy to say that I don't know enough to definitively say there aren't other reasons to rather get a canister, but the point I'm trying to make is that I definitely don't think you can say a canister is a compact sump. Canisters rely on trying to pump as much water over a small amount of filter media as possible. Sumps rely on pumping water over a large amount of filter media at a fairly slow rate. The fact that a sump is generally better oxygenated and the flow rate over the media is much lower means that the bacteria can more efficiently break down the fish waste.

 

Yes @KillerBunny +1! This was exactly my point, a canister can be a mission if you don't have access to the back of the tank (subject to different designs I guess), a sump is definitely the way to go IMO. It's worth the wait of drilling etc... @scotty 1400l/h on a 1000l Malawi tank is way lower than the recommended turnover as far as I know, you must do a lot of water changes or have very few fish?

 

While I don't have personal experience with canisters, I know the recommended rate for canisters is a turnover of 4-5 times your water volume per hour. If the canister is rated at 1400l/h, I doubt that the flow rate at 1.6m high will come anywhere near 1000l/h which is even less than recommended for sumps. I would also think this canister is woefully inadequate for a 1000l tank...

 

Did I say that the 1400l/hr was the only filter I had on the tank! Don't jumpt to conclusions before you have the facts. Comment once you have the facts! I run about 4200l/hr on the tank.

 

If you are wanting adecent water flow, even through a sump filter system, and you are pumping to a height of around 1,5-1,8m you are going to have to use a pump of atleast 2500-3500l/hr. The physical size of the sump results in a slower run of water over the bio-mass. The advantage of using plastic bio-balls is they do not clog over time. Yes, even Matrix will need to be replaced as the porpus holes will clog with time. This may be a lot longer than ceramic rings but it will happen. I run a number of sump systems in my shop and they are just as hard to clean as any other filter system. Yes I do clean them of the sediment from time to time. Mainly happens when I see the first chamber water level pushing up. You can have as much sponge and matt material as you like you will still get a slow down of water flow due to the muck that will collect.

 

+ 1 @scotty Lets not mention a fluidised bed filter......awesome setup in GHT, thanks by the way. Now there we saw some REAL filters. Nice to see how the pro's do it......and so easy !

 

Considering the fact that we were discussing whether a canister was better than a sump, it seemed implied. My mistake.

That's the beauty of a sump - You don't need that flow rates because you have so much more filter media. Even if you did, if I search online for pet supplies and look at the first place I found that sells pumps, I see that I can get a 2000l/h pump for R850. I have no doubt that I can find that cheaper elsewhere.

I would guess that's because the surface area is so much less and they aren't porous, meaning that you have much less bacteria, meaning you could have used a much smaller sump with a better filter media (Or gotten much better filtration with the same size sump). I have also seen it mentioned that bacteria doesn't like colonising plastic.

The fact is that obviously everybody has their own preferences and I'm not saying my way is the only way. I was trying to offer a comparison. My feeling is that canisters are a great solution for smaller tanks. On my 250l tank I would still consider using a canister. Once you go over that, I think the sump becomes more viable. As Scotty illustrated - on the 1000l tank it doesn't make sense to use a single canister filter anymore (Do you even get a 5000-6000l/h filter).

To sum up what has been discussed here from my perspective:

The pluses for canisters is essentially that they are more compact. However, the bigger your tank, the more expensive they get. I personally think saying that a sump is as much effort to clean as a canister is wrong, but even assuming they are the same amount of effort, you have to clean a canister filter every 2-4 weeks to prevent the flow rate from dropping dramatically, for a sump it may only be every 2-4 months (or more).

The pluses for sumps are numerous:
- Increased water volume
- You can hide your equipment outside your tank
- Easier to clean (In my opinion)
- Can be used for nursery / plant propagation
- On bigger tanks, will be cheaper than canister filter

About the only negatives I can think of is that it takes up more space and that you need either a drilled tank or an overflow pipe / box of some kind to get the water to the sump (But this is easy to make or readily available if you can't DIY it).

For me the fact that just about every shop I go into uses sumps rather than canisters tells me that sumps are cheaper, more efficient or easier to maintain (or some mixture of these) since that would be what I would consider if I was running a shop. If you add the fact that they use more space and space is at a premium in most shops, they must offset that negative in some way.

Obviously, these are my opinions and others will differ, but I have not seen anybody mention any other advantages of canisters over sumps.

 

Thanks for all the intresting opinions on this canister vs sump discussion. Im glad to see im not the only one with the ideas about both of them

 

@KillerBunny I think that pretty much sums it up

@scotty No disrespect, but it did sound like you were running only one canister which is why I questioned the statement I personally wouldn't want more than one canister filter to clean! :wink: