I decided that building your own aquarium sump is important for a few reasons. One, I am a very hands on guy and I like at least attempting to build something myself, albeit that I am not that good at it. Second, is that the sump that I wanted was between $260-$350 and that is no small investment.
The first thing I did was get the materials around. I bought:
3 DAP Aquarium silicone from the Home Depot SKU# 686064 for around $12.00
1 29 gallon aquarium from Miejer for $37
3 sheets of 1/4″ plate glass that I had cut 3’x13″ for $40
3’x14″ 1/4″ Plate Glass
I did a lot of reading on the internet about sump design and decided to come up with something that I thought would work. I wanted the skimmer to be in the first water box and I also wanted the option to add a refugium to the center box if it was something I wanted to do in the future. I figured it would be easier to add the option to the sump now as opposed to deciding I wanted one later.
Equipment placed in soon to be dump deciding where I wanted the baffles.
Now that I knew where I thought the best place was to put the baffles I went to work cutting the glass to size.
Using a well oiled cutter I am cutting the glass to size.
Once the glass cut to size it was just a matter of siliconing them in place where I wanted them.
Gluing the baffles in the sump with aquarium silicone
The picture above is the final design that, at least for now, I am going with. You can count on there being a lot more posts about this sump in the future. I am just hoping I have made something that will act as a good biological and mechanical filter for my future fishes.