Would this even work?

[Aft3rGl0w]

So hypothetically speaking, if I wanted to give up the saltwater life and tear down my 55, would having an overflow box and a sump be made to work with freshwater? I'm not saying for sure whether or not I'm gonna give it up for awhile, I just came in this morning to a rock slide in my tank that killed my Tomini tang, Yellow candy hogfish, (because they wee buddies and slept in the same space at night) and crushed a couple of corals. So just because of a random occurrence which I still have no idea how it happened, I'm out around idk maybe 150 bucks give or take. (If I had to guess I would say one of my urchins tried to squeeze into a crevice and ended up toppling a bunch of rocks). But this was kind of an eye opener to me, as I haven't lost a single fish since I set my tank up almost a year ago. It got me thinking, what if a storm comes and knocks my power out for a couple days. I would easily lose 500 plus dollars worth of livestock and corals. Anyways, I'm just debating if I should go out while I'm ahead and just sell everything and keep my tank stand lights and sump. I can't exactly convert it back into a regular tank because I have a drilled overflow box. I've been doing some research and it looks like it can be somewhat done, but I have no idea how to set up a wet dry out of it or how to make it a biological filter. Anybody have any experience with something like that? Lol

[catsma_97504]

Sorry to hear of the mishap. Yes you can use sumps with freshwater fish. Might need to put a screen over the intake to avoid smaller fish getting caught in the current.

[Aft3rGl0w]

Ok cool I already have a screen over my overflow box now. I've read horror stories of fish getting clogged in the overflow piping and flooding someone's entire house so I didn't take any chances lol. As of right now all I have is a filter sock, protein skimmer, some chaeto algae, and some live rock in the sump now. It has 3 compartments. I'm wondering if I could turn the first compartment into some sort of sponge filtration system, then put dirt into the second compartment and grow some low light plants underneath it with my refugium light. And turn it into some sort of a shrimp breeding system.

[catsma_97504]

I know many who use their sump for live plants and shrimp. Yes you can stuff the compartment with sponge. Just make sure the water can flow through it and not back up.

[pirahnah3]

you can absolutely use it as a FW tank, you might even be able to get to some really interesting places using the sump to grow plants and all that.

Sorry to hear of the loss on your SW tank. Its always a shame when things like that happen when you did not have any cause to it.

[Aft3rGl0w]

you can absolutely use it as a FW tank, you might even be able to get to some really interesting places using the sump to grow plants and all that.

Sorry to hear of the loss on your SW tank. Its always a shame when things like that happen when you did not have any cause to it.

That was my thought as well, people use mangroves and this stuff they call reef mud to basically turn their refugium into a bio filter. Idk why I could do that with freshwater it would make life alot easier than to have to buy another canister filter. And yeah it does suck :/ it's even worse explaining to your daughter why one of her favorite fish has gone missing.

[pirahnah3]

certainly should work, you should also be able to use it as a great plant grow out/expansion area nicely.

[Aft3rGl0w]

Schweeet! Looks like that's what I'll be doing whenever I can find someone to buy all my stuff. I already have an offer from some guy in Johnston city TN who says he's gonna put all my stuff in a reef tank that's in a museum of science lol. But as soon as I get rid of everything it's gonna get started up!

[pirahnah3]

nice! would be cool to be able to actually go and see some of your stuff surviving still for all to see.

[Matt B]

Seems like you already made up your mind but I'll add my opinion as well. Yes, sumps for freshwater tanks are awesome and typically they offer alot of flexibility as far as function from basic filtration to refugiums. I have ran sumps on my last 2 large fw tanks and the only downside I have noticed is they aren't great at mechanical filtration, in my opinion its because they water is flowing freely through them as opposed to being forced through media. Some people add a whole house filter to the return line or use a supplemental filter to achieve greater mechanical filtration.

[Aft3rGl0w]

Hmmmmm I mean if worse comes to worse I could slap an old whisper filter I have on there for added mechanical filtration. I've also been reading up on it alot and it seems quite a few people will put Purigen cartridges in the bubble trap section and force the water to flow through that.

[Matt B]

Yeah a filter just for mechanical should resolve it if you do end up having problems with debris, I don't know that you will I just speak from my own experience and talking with others. I've never used purigen before but I've heard good things about it resolving clarity issues, not sure what it would do for debris or "floaties". Just to be clear what I meant was it won't force the water through a media the way a canister would, once the flow rate through a media in a sump is reduced enough by build up it will just overtop/ that compartment and go onto the next since its not a sealed system.

[Aft3rGl0w]

Yeah I got what you're saying man, I have a couple filter socks that I use to keep most of the debris out. I just wash one out and change it with another one every week or so. It does a great job. But I'm sure with a dirted tank it will have some big pieces of something floating around lol

[pirahnah3]

I would say that if you are going to do a sump, and worry about the materials just use some batting material and do a small little drop in try and just lay the material on top of it. That will allow you to get full mechanical filtration of ALL your water. That will leave for a small downfall of any fry that come thru your lines will get stuck on the filter and die.

So for that there are pluses and minuses, I would personally think that you could probably make an easy trickle tower for initial ammonia conversion to NO2 and subsequently NO3 and then use a vertical style filter at the bottom of that. before it flows into the rest of the sump. That would give you a little space for the odd fry to survive the trip granted it would be a rough trip but possibly survivable. You might be able to do something in the overflow box if you really wanted to I am sure you could fashion something into the overflow area if you have a predrilled tank.

[Aft3rGl0w]

Hmmmm these are all great ideas. I actually looked into a diy trickle tower type thing at one time. All this talk has me thinking of how I could attach my pressurized C02 system to the sump to where I can get a high percentage of dissolving. Lol