How big a refugium do I need?

[Gabby Tony]

I getting ready to order my new 180 AGA and now need to work on the filtration. What kind/size of refugium do you recommend I get. My aquarium wil be upstairs and all plumbing and filtration will be in my basement. SO I have PLEANTY of room. I also am forutnate enough to have a good budget allotted for my new tank and accessories. I want to do this baby up right. It will be a reef tank and some fish.

Thank you for any and all suggestions.

Tony

 

[Blown 346]

For just the fuge I would reccommend the biggest one possible. Maybe a 55 gallon tank,one from a local pet store will do, so AGA is what most stores carry.

 

[Gabby Tony]

I have an ecosystem for my current 90 gal tank. I like the concept but don't know how to re-configure it to be my new sump or fuge. I would like to use my existing 90 gal tank for my new filtration but am not sure how to go about it.

 

[bergzy]

for my 180g, i set up a 110g acrylic sump dedeicated for holding live rock, extra water volume and growing out chaeto.

if you have unlimited space, i would have a separate tank for a refugium probably in the 100g to 200g range. make sure you have a lot of good turbulent flow to get the chaeto macroalgae rolling.

my 110g fuge has about 4000gph flow and i get nothing but incredible macro growth and no settling of detritus.

 

[reefD]

just to give another side . i have setup little 5 gallon fuges with macro and lighted 24/7 . this was added to tanks at 20 gallons,29 gallons and 40. basically anything like this is beneficial...of course size is a matter but if you are wonderinging if a small sump/fuge wuld be beneficial id say yes. any size fuge /sump helps benefit tank. now a small sump on a large tank would eventually need maintanace due to over runned with detrus. this can be fixed by syphoning. but when space or money is not the issue go with largest possible.

 

[reefD]

high flow in sump reduces settling of detrus but still needs to be removed by other filtration eventually. i prefer a low flow achieved with baffles so pods grow. pods dont like high flow and populate areas of still water.

 

[causeofhim]

If you have a nutrient low SPS system, you will not need a fuge at all.