Shane Graber:

I wanted to take a quick informal poll as to why some people place their sumps in their basements when their tank(s) are on the main floor directly above it. What exactly is the driving force behind placing the sump in the basement? More room? Less clutter by the main tank? Closer to the sink where your RO/DI water is made?

Mike Kirda:

So I don't get comments like "What the hell is that five foot tall plastic thingie next to your tank???"

Or from the more informed... "Say... Nice Skimmer."

Answer- Room, room, room. I can make my sump twice the volume of my tank... I might have to worry about heat as well, but that is fairly easy to solve- build up a small room and insulate it!

Moon:

I for one wish I had a basement for a sump. You could have a large sump with mangrove trees and various other plants and animals. you could also make the sump very big thereby enhancing the stability of your system not to mention having a huge refugium and or algae filter. To me it would seem to be the ideal situation.

Mike McCawley:

Quiet. My living room is too noisy. Mostly the skimmer, but the gurgling of the overflow and the whine of the return pump dramatically impede the enjoyment of my Dolby 5.1. I'm hoping to reduce the noise level to just the overflow gurgle with my basement sump project.

Rich King:

I do it for a lot of reasons. I put a 80 gallon sump on a clients tank in thier basement. Mostly for increased water volume and you can get more messy changing water in the basement instead of very expensive living room.. There are lots of reasons but a HUGE sump on a tank can't hurt more water is better IMO. Basements are cooler so running MH's on a system with a huge sump in the basement I never need a chiller. You can do a giant refugium with a deep sand bed.

Purvis Raeford:

I'm currently in the planning stages of a basement sump myself. The reasons for basement?

1. The sump will be a pair of 100 gal rubbermaid bins, one for sump, the other for DSB and mangroves --basement's the only place I have room for this.
2. The basement is where I have my RO, where I make and mix my water, so it should be easier to mess with everything there.
3. Noise -- I can have all the pumps in the basement, the chiller, etc.
4. Lighting -- I'll be able to have a reverse lighting in the basement, twin 400 W MH, which will greatly increase my grow-out abilities.
5. Heat management -- the chiller last summer was loud in my living room, this summer it can be loud in the basement. Plus, the basement is cooler and there will be more surface area for evaporation, so hopefully the chiller won't run. In fact, I may just set up a large fan to blow across the sump, which could make the chiller redundant. If that works out, maybe i can use the chiller for a cold-water tank I've been thinking about.
6. Water-management -- I plan to set up a large capacity top off down in the basement, and drip kalkwasser, so PH and salinity won't fluctuate all the time like they do under my current top-off regime.

It just seemed the basement made the most sense for all this, and would make life easier to locate everything down there. BTW, I'm pretty much trying to steal as many ideas as possible from the setup John Rice has on his web page as far as what I want to accomplish with the sumps.

Bob Denton:

Basement sumps are like drilled tanks (for overflows). If you don't do it from the start, you'll eventually wish you had...

Tom DeBenedictis:

Actually I did it for room and quiet.My friend call my basement "the labratory". It's where I spend most my time besides work.But actually I'm planning to make a whole room in the basement under a new addition I'm putting on.But I loved engineering the whole thing.