A fuge setup is easy: you need light, cheatomorpha moss, and a place to put it.
BUT---finding room is tricky in instances of a small sump, a lot of gear, and trying to do it under the stand.
Here are some suggestions.
1. clear your middle chamber: put your skimmer up on eggcrate grid and let it pump up and drain down. This is what I do: an Eshopps 30 gallon sump is almost all fuge.
2. use a small acrylic tank as a fuge and bring your downflow to it, with a drilled side and large bulkhead connector and hose (with eggcrate grid to prevent algae escaping) to take the outflow to the actual sump with the gear and all. It MUST be higher than the sump to drain properly.
3. put your fuge into a separate cabinet which you cleverly disguise as a buffet or doored cabinet beside your tank. Never mind the 2 hoses that lead to and from the tank stand. Again, to use gravity (and NEVER try to get two pumps to work in tandem!!!!) one must be higher than the other.
Thing about a fuge is that it really needs to stay lit 24/7. If you wanted to do a green tank as a room feature, you could, but that also gives you a night light.
Mine is in my basement. For light, I use a 6500k ordinary CFL floodlight in a clip-on shop-light body, about 20.00 for the whole rig.
Mine is a rock and sand and moss fuge: not the sightliest thing, because of the nasty pink coralline which is nearly impossible to get off rarely-tended acrylic, but the cheato ball is dark green and the size of a basketball.
And that sends a lot of oxygen to your tank, as well as copepods, amphipods, etc.
BUT---finding room is tricky in instances of a small sump, a lot of gear, and trying to do it under the stand.
Here are some suggestions.
1. clear your middle chamber: put your skimmer up on eggcrate grid and let it pump up and drain down. This is what I do: an Eshopps 30 gallon sump is almost all fuge.
2. use a small acrylic tank as a fuge and bring your downflow to it, with a drilled side and large bulkhead connector and hose (with eggcrate grid to prevent algae escaping) to take the outflow to the actual sump with the gear and all. It MUST be higher than the sump to drain properly.
3. put your fuge into a separate cabinet which you cleverly disguise as a buffet or doored cabinet beside your tank. Never mind the 2 hoses that lead to and from the tank stand. Again, to use gravity (and NEVER try to get two pumps to work in tandem!!!!) one must be higher than the other.
Thing about a fuge is that it really needs to stay lit 24/7. If you wanted to do a green tank as a room feature, you could, but that also gives you a night light.
Mine is in my basement. For light, I use a 6500k ordinary CFL floodlight in a clip-on shop-light body, about 20.00 for the whole rig.
Mine is a rock and sand and moss fuge: not the sightliest thing, because of the nasty pink coralline which is nearly impossible to get off rarely-tended acrylic, but the cheato ball is dark green and the size of a basketball.
And that sends a lot of oxygen to your tank, as well as copepods, amphipods, etc.
