# Fry/Sump



## verbosity (Nov 16, 2007)

I have a bunch of fish that are too small to put in my main tank. I don't want to ahve to deal with keeping a smaller tanks water parameters equal to the bigger main tank. My solution is a sump, designed with the fry in mind.

Now please keep in mind this is my first DIY sump. There are a few things I need to work out, like keeping the fish where I want them in the tank so they see when I feed them. Right now there are 18 juveniles in this tank.. They are all where I don't them. (In the pump cavity, or the filter media cavity.)



I have 12 gallons of 1.5 inch bio balls. They will fill three of the containers for the sump. The bottom container is just holding the rest up. It will not have any filter media. The blue sponge will be laid on top of the bioballs in the top basket. I have room to add one more basket.

I have done the power failure test. I have about an inch to spare if I keep the water level in my safe zone.

I already know how to keep the fish out of the big area.. I just have to pull the sump and do some more siliconing.. (Make it a little waterfall from filter area to fry area) Not sure what to do at the pump side though.

This is attached to a 125 Gallon tank.

This sump was made from a free breeder tank. I believed to originally be 40 gallons.
The filter baskets where 2 for 5 dollars at lowes. 
The overflow and pump kit was about 100 dollars off of ebay.
The glass cost me 16 dollars. And I have several extra pieces.
The plumbing cost about 4 dollars.
The 12 gallons of bioballs on the way were about 25 dollars. I should have plenty extra for future projects.

Tell me what you think.


----------



## scottven (Nov 20, 2007)

looks great.

One thing I would caution you about is the blue sponge stuff can gunk up pretty quickly and stop passing water, so make sure you have a "safe overflow" route the water can take when that happens.

As far as keeping the fry away from the pump, I've seen people stick sponges over the intake or in the gap between the two sump chambers.


----------



## verbosity (Nov 16, 2007)

I found sponge for this. I cut up the extra sponge for the FX5. It only took one box of three to do this.  Yay. 

Fry Area:

Full/safe Instructions:

BioTower Sponge. This is just to keep the fish from getting in this area.. Once the tower is loaded with media.. any water hitting this should be clean. 

Pump Sponge. This is to keep the fish out of the pump area. 

Entire setup with energy lightbulb (just so fish aren't in dark all day)

Entire setup with flash from camera.


----------

