Aqua Vim Eco-smart Sump Combo
Introduction
The latest technology in saltwater
aquarium keeping tells us, the best filtration for marine lives in an enclosed
system is not achieved mainly through mechanical screening or chemical neutralization,
but through ecological balancing of bio organism in diversity that resembles the
great nature. By providing basic elements of natural habitats of thriving
marine communities, with an adapting structure of living environment, you
establish a life mechanism to work by itself. We put this new technology to test
in our research facilities starting in the beginning of 2005. The reported results
were so convincing that we determined to launch Aqua Vim's
Eco-smart Sump Filter series and make them available to Aqua Vim's Ocean
View, Star View, and Moon View aquarium owners,
so that Aqua Vim customers can enjoy the goodness this system brings.
Traditional
wet-dry filters are widely considered the best solution to ammonia and nitrite,
the two substances toxic to fish and corals. The problem is, wet-dry filters
mainly work, not by erasing, but by converting ammonia and nitrite, into nitrate,
through a natural process known as the nitrogen cycle. Nitrate is less toxic to
fish but harmful to corals.
Aqua Vim’s Eco-smart sump
is the best filtration system on the market that successfully combines both
wet-dry and ecological filtering technologies, that gives the users freedom of
adjusting their firing targets - either ammonia/nitrite, or nitrate, or both,
according to their needs, by simply raising, lowering, or removing the bio balls in the
media chamber. - Knowing bio balls works harder when exposed to air, you elevate
their level of placement in the media room when you have more ammonia/nitrite in
water (often found in immature aquariums), and submerge them partially or
completely into water as you find less ammonia/nitrite and more nitrate.
Aqua Vim’s Eco-smart
Sump
system works the best for aquariums with corals when
used with refugium mud and micro algae plants. Caulerpa, available in many
aquarium stores, is a micro algae plant known to consume nitrate. You can also
use mangrove, shaving brush, halimeda. These plants turn nitrate into gas,
which evaporates into the air. A lighting fixture suitable for plant growth,
can be placed on top of the sump tank for caulerpa plants. You can
keep the light on all
time when you don't want the plants grow too fast, or you can
connect it
with a timer to automatically turn it on during night time and off during day
time just opposite to the light for your main tank to make them grow faster so
you can harvest them to
feed your
herbivore fish.
Aqua
Vim's 3rd version Eco-Smart Sump includes improved features, specially in the
refugium room. The refugium room takes water in a very slow flow pattern through
a small hole, before nutrients in water are taken away by any skimmer you may
have. - You can insert a air tubing through the hole and hatch your bring shrimp
in the room; you can keep small animals there separate from large predators of
your main tank, and you can place live plants, live rocks, and multiply micro
organism there in this isolated little world but automatically supply your main
tank animals with these live food as they grow.
Unlike
traditional wet-dry filter,
a protein skimmer is less demanded with Aqua Vim Eco-Smart Sump system
if you apply the above methods and developed an ecological balance in your
aquarium system.
In fact, a protein skimmer that is too powerful would "eat
up" too much nutrients, curbing the
reproduction and growth of microorganism that are beneficial to fish and corals.
Unfortunately, most people overfeed their pets, producing too much organic
wastes than the system can handle through natural means, thus comes the need of
a powerful skimmer. The purpose of protein skimmer, however, should not be to remove all,
but excessive nutrients, before they become toxic in aquarium water.
UV
sterilizer is not required either. If you want to use it to curb algae, you
don't want it to overkill. A UV light too powerful can kill some good
microorganism, even corals. The natural way to curb algae is by putting algae
eaters like snails, hermit crabs, and blenny fish, sea stars, urchins,
etc., into your aquarium.
Installation
of Aqua Vim reef ready tank and Eco-smart Sump:
Tank installation note:
Aqua Vim's reef ready tanks usually come with overflow box(es) and
pre-drilled holes (typically included with Ocean View and Moon View series
aquariums). To give yourself room to work with, it's better to install pipe sets in the overflow box first before install
pipes of the sump.
There are 2 holes in each overflow box, the big one for drain and the
small one from return. Your goal is to connect a water pump at the lower end
of the system so it pumps water up to the main tank through the small pipe,
as the water fills up the main tank, water from main tank goes into the
overflow box and drain down by gravity through the big pipe to the sump
filter and gets filtered, then gets pumped back up again to the main tank.
You will need to make the connections without giving them any chance of
leaking by using included bulkheads and fittings.
Aqua Vim's OV /MV tanks have a special 1/4" thick Styrofoam attached to
the tank bottom, that serves as a shock absorber to absorb vibration from
the floor. By using a razor blade, you cut off part of the Styrofoam around
each hole, roughly 2" bigger than the hole size, so that when you install
bulkhead, bulkhead nut can be in direct contact with the glass.
The drain pipe assembling comes with a siren cap with
1/4" hole on top, that reduces the gurgling sound of the draining water. For
quietest operation, It's important to let the inlet of the drain pipe (the
elbow of the drain pipe set) to stand as high as possible, so that the
waterfall from the main tank into the overflow box has least vertical drop
possible.
When you install the bulkhead, use the included rubber ring inside the
tank, between bulkhead head and glass. Thus when you tighten the bulkhead
nut, it will provide a good seal.
To prevent the whole pipe set from turning with the bulkhead nut, you can
glue the in-tank section of the pipe set to the bulkhead, so that you can
have someone to hold it near the tank top when you are tightening the
bulkhead nut in the stand underneath. But only glue them when you have try
all parts on to make sure they are the proper lengths you need. We don't
recommend you glue the threaded part of the bulkhead with threaded PVC
adapter, simply because in case you need to undo the connection in the
future, you can undo relatively easy.
For saltwater setup, it's likely you will need a skimmer. Most skimmers
need separate pumps dedicated to the skimmer. However, you can use ETSS
SumpBuddy 40 or 60 downdraft skimmer (a patented technology by AE Tech), and
AquaVim's 2000ghp or 2600gph SuperQuiet pump to supply water both to main
tank and to skimmer. For this purpose, you install a "T" in the return pipe,
one going to the main tank, and on the other, you install a ball valve, and
the outlet of the ball valve is connected with a flexible hose to the
skimmer inlet. You control and set the flow to the skimmer with the ball
valve. The
advantage of this setup is that you eliminate the need of another pump and
the noise and heat it generates, and save space in the sump.
Sump installation note:
First,
identify which chamber of the sump tank will receive the drain pipe (bigger
pipe) from main tank. - In AquaVim's sump filter, this is usually the room with a black thick sponge
that has a hole in the middle.With AquaVim Eco-Smart sump filter, water first flows
down from overflow box of the main tank to drain chamber of the sump filter, it
goes up to wet-dry chamber, trickle down on and pass through filter media, then to refugium/skimmer room(s). The last chamber water reaches is the main pump
room. - This is where the filtered water being pumped back up into the
main tank.
If you did not get Aqua Vim's Eco-Smart sump filter, and have a sump from
another manufacturer, the flow path is about the same - except you may not
have the dedicated refugium section or skimmer room. A refugium enables you
to reproduce micro organisms to supply your fish and/or corals with live
food, and to keep live plants to reduce harmful nitrate. A dedicated skimmer
room help maintain the water level for your skimmer to get the best skimming
efficiency. Please note many sump filters made by other manufacturers have
only fixed inlet and outlet sizes, that are not alterable. You'd better get one
that does not limit its inlet/outlet sizes or purchase a sump from Aqua Vim the
same time you purchase the main tank. Why? Because one of the advantages of Aqua
Vim reef tanks is that you can achieve more flow rates. If you reduce the
inlet/outlet sizes, you are not taking one of AquaVim advantages. Besides, by
reducing the inlet size of your sump, you risk clogging your drain; By reducing
the outlet size of your sump, your pump has to work harder to pump equal amount
of water to your main tank. Sometimes, you will find the included PVC pipes
from us are longer than actually needed - you may
need to cut to fit and this can be done easily with a hacksaw.
Use included white tapes on threaded males. Use PVC glue only if you have to - you want
to be sure you can undo your work and change later if they don't fit. If you
want to use a 45 degree elbow instead of 90 degree one, if you believe a
flexible hose is easier to work with than a hard PVC, or if you want to add ball
valve on the pipe line, get from Home Depot - our plumbing
sets are standard and fitting parts are easy to find on the market.
* Note: a). The spare outlets from the
ball valves shown above are reserved for any additional equipment, such as
chiller, calcium/phosphate/carbon/bio-pellet reactor(s) and UV sterilizer.
b). Ball valves and additional fittings are usually not included in plumbing
kit. You can get from Home Depot or other plumbing shops.
Sump Installation:
1). If you install a skimmer that comes with a drive pump, place the pump in the skimmer chamber, hook up the tubing with protein skimmer and its pumps. Connect any other equipment you may want to use, such as a chiller.
Most people don't use a sump cover for easier access. If your sump is our
earlier version that comes with acrylic cover, you can use it or leave it.
2).
Use included PVC tubing, elbows, adapters, joint coupler, and hose, to do the
following:
a). Return pipe connection: Our SuperQuiet pump has a 1" outlet that
can be used with both 3/4" and 1" adapters included. The adapter fits straight
to a 1" PVC pipe that has a blue insert sleeve inside (You may also be able to
use a slip/thread coupler to screw directly onto the SuperQuiet pump outlet).
This PVC pipe connect to a joint (a 2-part threaded coupler that connects two
ends of PVC pipes. The other end of PVC pipe connects the joint to an elbow,
than another PVC pipe that connects the elbow to another elbow that connect to
an adapter that screws into the bulkhead at the bottom of the main tank.
b). Drainage pipe connection: From the bigger bulkhead coming out of main tank
bottom, the first part to used is an PVC adapter that you screw into the bulkhead,
then a PVC pipe that can be connected with elbow and another PVC pipe, than
another elbow, than another PVC pipe, to reach its drain chamber.
3). After pipe connections, you
are ready to setup the sump filter:
4).
Open the drip plate, and set the media rack to the level you want, then put in
large bio balls or any other media you want. We suggest, you set the rack on high level if all your water
and live rocks are new, or if you keep fish only. If you will keep both fish and
corals, you can lower the rack to middle level after water with live rocks has
been cycled for 3 months. You can lower the rack to the bottom and completely
submerge the bio balls in water if you keep mainly corals. Remember: Exposing
all the bio ball in the air maximizes the wet-dry filter's
ammonia/nitrite-breaking power, and submerging the bio ball in water lets the
ecological system take over the work on nitrate reduction.
5).
(This is only for sump version 1 that has a screen wall.) Insert screen walls, put small bio balls into the wall. Cover the balls with the
included glass cover. You may also use sponge-like filtering pad. This is to
stop live plants getting into the pump room.
6).
Put in refugium mud, or "Miracle mud", into refugium room, ideally to
3 ~ 4 inch thick.
7).
Fill the sump with water, until the refugium room is half full. Then put in
plants.
8).
Water level: The water level in the sump can be between the level that your pump
start pumping tiny air bubbles into the main tank, and the level where there is
enough extra room to hold water coming down from the main tank after you stop
you pump.
9).
Skimmer. When you purchase skimmer from us together with a tank set, rest assured the skimmer we
recommend will fit the space in the sump in the stand. If you buy skimmer from
other source, please tell us the foot print and height of your skimmer and its
pump, so we can be sure your skimmer will fit in our sump and stand.

Eco-Smart
Sump Filter version 3 (pump, skimmer and sump light optional)
 Eco-smart Sump combo version 2
(pump and skimmer optional) The
following is a drawing of our earlier version sump, that may be different from
the sump you received:

Aqua Vim Eco-smart Sump combo version 1 |