SUMP/REFUGIUM (?SP)

[Canadian]

Sumps serve various purposes depending on what your goals are. You can use your sump simply as a place to house equipment and add additional water volume to your system. If this is your goal, then a rubbermaid container or old aquarium would suffice quite nicely.

If your goal is to also have a refugium to grow/harvest macro algae or as a place for copepods, bristleworms, etc to readily reproduce then you need to partition part of the sump so that the sand/rock/etc can be contained in one spot. In addition, if you intend to grow macro algae in your sump you'll have to make plans to install some kind of sufficient lighting system above the refugium section.

The reasoning behind the baffles is two fold: 1)They serve as the partition to isolate the refugium section (keep the sand in one spot) and 2)By having multiple baffles you can limit the number of annoying bubbles in your display tank. The baffles cause the bubbles formed from your protein skimmer and the cascading water making its way to your sump from the display tank to break at the water surface in the sump as they pass under and over the baffle. see picture posted by Darren

The reason that the pictures of sumps on J&L Aquatic's site are confusing is that they really aren't "just" sumps; they're Wet/Dry or Trickle Filters. Whithout going into great detail, a wet/dry filter on your reef tank would essentially be useless, or even worse, counter productive.

*IMPORTANT NOTE* - If you do intend to design a sump containing baffles it is paramount that you be sure to house the protein skimmer (more specifically: the pump for the protein skimmer) in a section of the sump where the water volume does not fluctuate. i.e. not the last section of the sump. This ensures that the skimmer can perform optimally.

[ 17 January 2002: Message edited by: Canadian ]