I have a 30 gallon hex and due to the small compartment in the stand below I have to build a sump from scratch including the tank itself. I have never built a sump before so would like some feed back from experienced sump builders.

If anyone knows of any sumps that have similar dimensions and are low in cost let me know, I am not hell bent on building this myself I just want the best value for my buck and right now building it myself is the only answer.

Okay I came up with a 5 baffle four compartment design, I decided to put the return in the middle in order to have the refugium in front as the first visible compartment when opening the stand. I plan to build the entire sump out of acrylic sheets. Here is how I planned the flow.

  1. Water enters compartment A from the overflow, baffle #1 seperates Live Rock from Tunze 9002 skimmer.
  2. Water flows under baffle #2 via slots carved into the bottom of baffle #2 this is to reduce bubbles in the return. I chose slots instead of a one inch gap because I didn't want anything getting into the return other than water of course.
  3. Water flows over baffle #3 into the return, I am going to get a 500-600 gph pump of which I plan to pump 350-400 gph into the display and the remaining through the refugium by using a T and a ball valve to control the flow.
  4. Water from refugium flows over baffle #4 via slots carved into the top into the return.





the retun and overflow pipes are actually level with each other but I made the return a couple inches higher just to better see what I am planning.

A few questions,

How thick should the acrylic be for the outside walls of the tank, how thick should it be for the baffles? Home Depot sells some .093" which is roughly 1/10" is this good enough?

Does anyone have experience with a vendor online that sells good cheap acrylic?

Does my design have any flaws, are there any suggestions that might improve the sump?

I thank you in advance and appreciate the feedback