Aquarium Sump Filtration

***Aquarium sump does not come with lighting. Pump is only included with the sump rated up to 500 gallons; it is not included in the rest***

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 completely 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 and online, 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.