Sump

[Bigi]

Hi, I'm just starting to put a tank together and want to run a scrubber over the sump, my question is if doing this and skimmerless what do you have in the sump? Do you still have sand/mud/rock etc?

[Vannpytt]

No, as little as possible, preferably no sump at all.

[Marksfish]

Why no sump? Surely you r betteroff keeping as much equipment out of view as possible?

[Reefkeeper82]

Running sumpless maybe the best thing for a scrubber system, however, it's not very pratical for most of us.

Even if you are running a scrubber like an SM-100 (which you can purchase from Santa), it's not so pratical. If you don't mind looking at things hanging above and over your display, then go for it.

Not having a sump means you have to also run all probes and dosing, and etc directly into the tank! Again, if you don't mind things over your display. This will allow any pods produces by the scrubber to dump directly into your tank.

However, after much evaluation, it is best to run a sump if you wanted a clean look. If you are running a doser for two-parts and cal. reactor then a sump will help keep things under the "hood".

And if you don't have a sump, how do you get water siphon into your scrubber?

To answer the OP question directly, you can run DSB and macro if you wanted. I'm running that now, and I found it to be a successful setup. One negative is that ditratus in sump... I have live rocks and chaeto and it's near impossible to clean out the sump.

So my next setup is to run strong ATS plus skimmer (only run skimmer 5-8 hours daily). Nothing else in sump to make it easy to clean.

people run skimmer + GFO or dosing chemical to control nutrient. I think a much better alternative to that is skimmer + ATS. Only time will tell how successful this system will be. And I'll post pics in the future to back up my theory :)

[SantaMonica]

An open sump that traps no particles is good because it lets all the particles go to feeding the livestock.

[Rumpy Pumpy]

I just have a bit of rock in mine, which provides a place for pods and other critters to grow (and they seem to clear up any detritus that catches there)

If you did want to go sump-less you could make a low profile one sided scrubber which could hang on the wall above and behind your display, fed by a pump in the display and discharging directly into it. You could hang a picture or something on the case of the wall mounted scrubber to hide it.

I was toying with doing that before I built my current sump/scrubber. But decided I wanted a sump in the end for reasons stated by others, above.

[Reefkeeper82]

I'm going with an open sump with a powerhead in there to keep things suspended.

[Bigi]

Thanks for the answers/suggestions guys.

I see that most scrubbers are in a sort of enclosure, would it be ok to let the bottom of the screen go directly into the sump? Are there any problems or downsides to this?

[Reefkeeper82]

My DIY scrubber's screen is touching the surface of the sump's water. Nothing is wrong with that. Works great.

It's worth it to invest in a box-like design though. Much more compact and significantly more effective in filtration.

I got an amaze deal on two used SM-100s. They are a huge improvement over my DIY. :) It's like comparing a wooden stick with a japaness samurai sword! haahha.. you got the picture right?