Sump For Small Aquarium

Hello,
I'm thinking of building sump for 20 gallon aquarium. I need simple cheep sump, so I'll build it off old 10 gall tank. Can anyone help me how to divide this tank by glass. And what is difference of dividing by single, double or even triple glasses?

 

Go over to the salt water side for more info on sumps. In your bottom pic, make sure to leave room at the top so water can over flow the baffles if need be. Each division will give you a different compartment for different uses.
Creating the overflow and keeping it running, now there's your challenge.
Good luck

 

For a 20 gallon, an overhead sump using a large Sterilite plastic container would be a lot easier . Just need a pump with prefilter to lift water into the container and you easily drill a few holes for the return line (let gravity do the work). Just fill it with biomedia and done . It's like an oversized HOB filter

A 10 gallon sump isn't worth it IMO as you will lose water volume once you account for all the water that will drain into the sump if power shuts off. I don't think it's worth the effort or expense for an extra 5 gallons water volume. If you could put a 20 gallon or larger sump that would be good but "unusual". Also I would consider using poret foam for your baffles and keep the project simple. You would essentially have a mattenfilter sump

Saltwater sump designs are more complicated than needed for freshwater. Freshwater does not need protein skimmers or microbubble traps. If you still want to do all that (adding baffles etc) ok, but I prefer keeping things simple. An internal corner mattenfilter (i.e. no sump, no HOB, etc) is super low maintenance and there's no chance of leaks.(unless tank breaks).

If you do a sump then follow a Herbie overflow design to reduce risk of flooding your floors.

 

Thanks guys,
Oveflows seems too risky to me. I'm thinking about drilling a hole in aquarium. And I don't like overhead sump. I want do not coverred aquarium. I want to try an aquascaping a bit, and don't think diy overhead sump looks good. By the way, sump will be behind aquarium.

 

Complicated? Skimmers have nothing to do with it. Not worth it for so liilte gain.