What's is a wet dry system

[Mattl22]

What is the difference between a tank that has a sump and one with a wet dry system and r there anyother types of setups?

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[KathyC]

What is the difference between a tank that has a sump and one with a wet dry system and r there anyother types of setups?

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The reason many folks set up a sump is to increase the water volume of the total system for added stability of the tank as with more water some mistakes that are made do not impact the tank as much as an error with a smaller volume of water.
The sump is also a great hidden place for your equipment rather than hanging it off the sides of your display tank..such as reactors and your skimmer for instance. Some also have a section with live rock/rubble in it.

Many times a sump also contain (or is attached to) an area called a refugium, meaning a place to put some live rock and/or macro algae that becomes a 'refuge' for critters like pods to grow (many do make it into your DT through the plumbing).

Wet-dry filters have a bad reputation in the SW hobby as nitrate factories due to the volume of bio balls used as media. This is due to all of the detritus that gets caught up in the bio-balls. While they can be used, they need to be cleaned on a regular basis - which quickly gets to be a tedious task. The downside to cleaning out the detritus is you are also killing off a lot of bacteria (that colonize the bio-balls), so it's a bit of a catch-22.
Not to say that if people don't keep their sump clean that a similar thing doesn't happen when they have tons of crud caught up in the live rock rubble many tend to keep in their sump

Hope that helps

 

[motortrendz]

yes , tanks with all HOB (hang on back) filters.. a sump is basically a remote place to do all your filtration(skimmer,carbon and phosban reactors) and heating w/o having everything in your display tank.. a wet/dry is a type of filter(one not really recomended for reef use,bc they cause high nitrates)
also alot of people incorperate a refugium into the sump(a small chamber where you keep a deep sand bed and grow macro algea, like cheato, calerpa)

beerfish actually made a really good post abt this, here u go..
http://www.manhattanreefs.com/forum/general-discussion/77857-refugium-primer.html