standard sump size

[windeindoiel]

What is the normal size a sump should be in relation to tank volume? Like the standard that most people use? Thanks.

[BigA]

I think it varies according to everything from budget to availabe space to what kind of tank it's for, to whatever you have available to use as a sump. Obviously the bigger the sump, the better as it increases the total amount of water in the system, and therefore makes the system less vulnerable to temperature and chemistry changes. I've seen a 50gal tank with a 30 gal sump, but I've also seen a 65g with a 10g sump.

[jvision]

Aaron's pretty much said it, but it seems that most people go from 1/4-1/2 of their main tank volume.

[windeindoiel]

Well mostly we want to figure out what a "standard" sump should be, for overflowing purposes and that.

Edited April 12, 2007 by windeindoiel

[Rainmaker69]

The most important factor in sizing a sump is to figure out how much water comes down from the tank into the sump after the power is out. An air hole on the pump outlet just below the water level will break the syphon so that the tank will not overflow the sump. Here is a link that covers sumps and plumbing fairly well and I know I have a sump overflow calculater somewhere but I will have to find it. HTH

http://dslinux.dyndns.org/~denise/aquarium...utureindex.html

Found it, http://reefcentral.com/calc/sump.php

Edited April 11, 2007 by Rainmaker69

[Murminator]

For me big enough to hide all my equipment little macro algae most important enough room to hold all the water incase of a power outage and everything in the plumbing drains back

On one of my tanks I run a 90G with a 25G sump for example