Brian:
Hey, everybody, this is Brian Howell from SaltWater Ambitions. I wanted to talk to you today about umps specifically the seamless sump solution that I got from Custom Aquariums. As you can see here, I've got four pieces of PVC coming out of my stealth box overflow running into a sock tub here and then all of the pieces underneath are actually independent pieces. I've got one tank here that's a skimmer reservoir.
I've got the sock tub here, giant sock tub. I've got a baffle top here and I've got what is essentially an evaporation tank to help control some of the top off.
Each one of these pieces is independent of one another but they're all connected together either the via this bulkhead and flexible tube solution at the bottom or as you can see there are some overflow drains that run from one tank to another here via the top. There are so many things that I like about this sump solution but I just want to talk to you about a couple of the specific features here that I like. One, these tubs are made out of HDP. HDP is high-density polyethylene. If you're like me, I had no idea what that was prior to doing some research but this material is awesome especially for an aquarium sump like this.
In my past, I've always had acrylic sumps and you run into issues where over time some of the seams might start to leak or if you drop something in it or bump it or twist it in any way it can potentially crack. You deal with discoloring and all that kind of stuff. Well, this material absolutely does not do that. This is really an industrial grade material. You would be hard-pressed to do any kind of damage to one of these pieces, whether it's dropping it off a truck when you're loading it or if you really had to work it to get it into a stander, anything like that. You would really have a hard time doing some damage to these things even if you wanted to.
The other thing is, with this material, just by its nature, nothing really sticks to it. You don't have to worry about from a cleaning perspective any kind of algae growing and sticking to this from the inside. Even if you were to get one of their tanks and have a light on it to use as a refugium, you wouldn't have to worry about algae growth and the inside of these tanks collecting anything that you would have to clean off. As a matter of fact, I had these in my garage prior to bringing them in and setting them up. One of the tanks actually got some overspray on it of some paint and it basically wiped right off even after it was dry. This material is amazing.
The way they designed these things there are some predefined markings on them. For instance, on the baffle tub here you'll see there's a max fill line but you'll also notice these little dimples here. Those can be used if you need to easily drill out your own bulkhead. You can really customize these things to do whatever you want with them. They're very flexible solutions. Once you buy one, you are not really stuck with the configuration that you have. It's very easy to move things around and adjust. As you can see the protein skimmer tank that I have- my protein skimmer is fairly large. This is a very large skimmer and I have no problem fitting it in the skimmer tab.
There's plenty of room to work around it, for doing maintenance and any adjustments that I need to make. I really, really like that. I've got this sock tub here. This is a massive sock tub. As you can see it's got a glass lid and it was pre-drilled with these ports for the overflow. There are four of them in there and there are clips to hold in these four giant filter socks. I can show you how big these things actually are. I pulled a spare one out so that you could see the size of it these things are absolutely huge but they line up inside like this. They're very easy to access for maintenance pulling them in and out and of course, these things are cleanable and reusable.
I've got the baffle tub here, so as the water flows out of the sock hub into the baffle, there are trays in here, media trays, that I use for filtration. I think there's five or six of those in there. Then as part of the baffle, you'll see inside, you can't really see in the video but I have a 300-watt titanium heater in there. You don't have to worry about placing the heater in your actual display tank. You can keep it securely down there in the sump. Then I've got four return pumps in there that push the water back up into the display. I love this baffle tub. It's very flexible for anything you would want to add to it. Then I've got this evaporation tank here that I put RO water in to keep the evaporation under control.
These glass tops do help with the evaporation though and these are really really thick nice glass tops and as you can see here that's condensation on the top of it really does help with a lot of the evaporation. This solution is really, really nice. It helps to keep everything managed, you can see there the grommet for the power cables on the pumps and the heater, you can see the pre-drill, the holes for the return hoses and you can add anything else that you want to it.
Being able to drill these out and adjust them allows you to do things like this where you can actually have a water line running off of your return into the evaporation tank to keep the water moving so that that water is not sitting in the tank just stagnant all the time. This other hose here I use actually for acclamation. If I want to drip acclimate anything, I can just dial that in basically and attach another hose to the end of this guy and I don't have to worry about a siphon out of the tank. It'll just push it right from the return. Anyway, this sump solution is amazing. It looks great. Like I said, it's really an industrial quality.
I really appreciate everything that the guys at Custom Aquariums did to help me get this lined up for my build. Also if you notice, this thing fits underneath the stand. Custom Aquariums has a lot of different options for different size tanks and configurations but if you're in a position where you have to fit these things under a stand, the way that they're designed you can certainly do that. I'll show you from this view. I have room to spare here in my build if I needed it. If you guys have any questions or you're looking for a sump solution, I'd be more than happy to talk with you about it. I just wanted to give you an update on what I was running here. I appreciate it and I will talk to you all soon.
