Early Stages of a Sump

[wnuk]

I am in the early early stages of planning a sump......

So far I have my 10G glass aquarium, and I am hoping to have this sump run below my 20G tank on the stand above it.

I am going to run a venturi Skimmer ( Amiracle) in the sump and have a small refugium type area in the middle of the sump.


I have some preliminary questions about how I am going to get the water from my tank(3 feet above) to the sump below and then back up into the main tank.

I was thinking about drilling a hole in my HOB filter and putting some sort of drain regulator in the hole, and to let gavity take over to get the water into the sump.
I figured this would be much easier than drilling the tank, and would be less expensive than having a pump draw the water intot he sump.

Has anyone ever tried this before?

Is it feesible?

The return would be a submersible pump, forcing the water back into the main tank.

I would use the regulator(not sure of correct terminiolgy) that I would install in the hole in the HOB, to regulate flow and keep the water draining from the tank equal to the amount of water going back into the tank.

I would really appreciate any comments/suggestions.

Thank you!

[afss]

IMO its a bad idea to regulate the flow through the restriction of the pipeing. If the pipe becomes slightly blocked it will slightly change the flow rate to the sump. The flow rate from the sump will not change so the net effect is that you will end up pumping the sump to your main tank and over the edges to the floor and then the sump pump will likely run dry and cook itself.

You also shouldn't use a pump to pump water to the sump for the same reason. The flow rates from the pump to and from will be in flux. You may get them to match up temporarily, but eventually, when you are not home, the rates will change and the same thing will happen.

You really need some sort of overflow be it an external or an internal (drilled). IMO drilling the tank is really the best option. Having said that I do currently use a home made external overflow on my display tank, all my other tanks are drilled with DIY internal overflows. My next display tank will be drilled.
If you are interested in an overflow there are many DIY articles on the net on making one.

The big thing is that the water going to the sump should be gravity fed, and should have the capacity to handle much more flow than the return pump is capable of pushing.

Scott