120 gallon sump help

OK I'm starting to make a plan for the sump on my 120. I want to go sump/ fuge. What are people thoughts and ideas. I really wanted to go to the basement with the sump, but it would be in the middle of my family room in the basement. So dont think that will work out. So what size of sump and I was thinking two tanks one a fuge and one a sump for live rock and skimmer. Any help would be great!

 

I am have a 120 and made a 3 compartment sump out of a 40 breeder. The skimmer in the first live rock and chaeto in the middle and reactors probes and return in the 3rd

 

How heavy of a bio load do you have? I'm going to keeo a lot of sps and lps. Is that enough 40 gollon? Do you know what the deminsions are of the 40?

 

In my 90 I use a 30 long, and I keep mainly acros. I know some folks with 120's that use a 20 long and have some of the nicest tanks around. the onething you need to be mnindful of is how much room you save yourself in your sump compartment. If you go too big , like i did, you dont allow yourself enough room for equipment and maintenance

 

i don't have a huge load right now but am working towards it. I saw a lot of nice 120 setups using the 40 breeder so I went with it. I really like the width (front to back), allows for room for in sump reactors etc. I am paranoid of water and run all my equipment in sump. Asside from my calcium reactor (yet to hook up), everything goes in my sump. I built my stand to give me the extra room for the other equipment so I agree with mthomp on the idea of keeping some room in there even if you think you have everything you need now. I have found I always "need" some other piece of equipment or something. I can measure it tonight for you.

 

You can always run the plumbing to an area in your basement that will work out assuming that you have access to the areas where you would need to run plumbing. My family room is not over my basement, just a crawl space, so I have to run the plumbing through the crawl space and into the basement. It makes for a long run and requires a heavy pump. If you have the pump for the job, you can put your sump anywhere you want. I have a 75 gallon sump on mine that's filled about 80% full. I also have a 40 gallon frag tank connected to the system as well. With the long plumbing run, you need to leave adequate room for water that's in motion (in the plumbing) to go when your power is off. I have a high bioload in my system. A frag tank full of corals and a mixed reef in my display, over 15 fish, multiple shrimp, multiple anemones, etc.

--AJ

 

Well I have a 56 gallon for a sump and a 29 gallon I could use for a fuge. I think I would have to go at least 30 feet from a spot in my basement that I could make work to back to the tank. Maybe a little further even. What kind of pump would I need to use? I would really like to go to the basement, but really dont want to spend $500 on a pump.