New refugium!!

Ryanqk

Ryanqk

Active member
I finally got my 10gl tank back after my friends oscar and peacock bass outgrew the tank. So yesterday i went out and spent a pretty penny on the equipment to make it into a refugium for my 30gl display. I'm probably gonna have to consult yall a bit on setting this up, i pretty much know how it will work but actually making it happen is a totally different thing. Here is a pic of what i have to work with and where its going. I have a bench i may put the 10gl on in the corner this is my pet project for the next week. Anyways, i will update this thread as i go along, here is a link to pics :

http://ryans9month.blogspot.com/2006/08/today-i-went-and-got-equipment-to-turn.html

Tips are appreciated.
Ryan
 
Oh Also does anyone have any Macroalgae and stuff like that they can donate ? I just nuked my bank account over this project. lol
Ryan
 
Hello Ryan! I too am building a 10g refugium (albeit to go under my 15g nano!) and would like to see how you do yours. What kind of divider is that in the 10g? I haven't yet decided how I'm going to divide mine up...definitely 3 sections, but I'm not sure whether to use glass or plexi dividers and how to attach them in the refugium. I purchased an overflow box similar to what you have, but decided the inside skimmer box part was too big to be in my little tank, so I purchased a smaller version at the last frag swap. I also have the ribbed overflow line to run down to the fuge, but I'm also not sure yet what I'm doing for a return line. I see you have some clear tubing there, but I'd only use that temporarily, as it will grow algae faster since it lets the light inside the tube.

You should come to the meeting on Tuesday and pick some brains there...that's been a great way for me to get ideas too!

Keep us updated here as you move along with your project.
 
If you're coming to the meeting, pm me and I'll bring you enough chaeto to get you started.
 
Ok its noon and everything is hooked up and flowing, fortunatly it appears that the maxi-jet 600 and the intake are moving water at the same rate, i marked the water line in both tanks with a piece of tape, and for 2 hours ive been watching to see if anything changes. I dumped both of my specimen container ref.'s into the new refugium. I would like to get a more powerful pump to perhaps circulate the water a lil faster but for now everything is fine. I moved my heater and a air pump into the sump and filled the closed off section with some bio-balls i had lying around. I'm a little nervous to leave the house at the moment becuase i fear a power outage or other murphys law type of thing to flood my apartment but im sure once i've tweaked everything i will be safe... for now im relaxing, later i will organize the wires and set the intake/outakes so that they will just stop and not backflow in an emergency. My blogsite wont let me post any pics right now for some reason but as soon as i can ill put some pics up,
As for the dividers, i just have one plastic el cheapo clip in divider right now, ill upgrade to something more permanent when i can afford to, I am really suprised at how easily this was put together, and how stable its behaving, i didnt think it would intake at the same rate it outputs but now that i think about it its simple laws of displacement, ill see if maybe i can put some pics in my gallery. Oh i tested for everything and my nitrates, thanks to the extra 10gl are already significantly dilluted.
Ryan
 
I was worried about the whole powerthing too...the best thing to do is get a battery backup for the computer. it will run my return pump and a powerhead for about and hour and a half to 2 hours! its well worth it expecially with storm season coming up! I think it was about 60 or 80$
 
Well for that i actually got a tractor battery and a dual live well aerator from bass pro shop, thats just for the air however it should run for a couple days at least and can be recharged in the car. I'm not sure ill be able to operate a pump from it too...
When the wind gets above 40 here my power starts to flicker, you can bet i have some D batteries hoarded up lol! I think if we get a storm im gonna need a longer term solution than a 2 hour computer battery backup, although i had looked into it too.
 
lol...I have 2 of those aswell, but the batterybackup will keep a constant flow of power to the tank till the battery runs out! i live on the beach here in Ft Laud and my power is always flickering on and off so the batterybackup just keeps constant power to the tank. So if I am at work or not home I have plenty of time to get home and the airpumps on before I have to worry!!
 
so tell me how did you wire the backup system to the battery, thats what has me stumped, if i han basically convert the energy from the battery to run a power strip or something i'd do it, thats the best solution, to run air and water flow.. is there a way to run a 12v battery to a power strip effectivly?
 
youd need to run a power inverter with a car battery

but i think what Bret is tallking about is a battery backup from a computer. a UPS.

you need to buy one that outputs a true sine wave though, the cheaper UPS's dont do that (found out the hard way) seio powerheads wont work without that, mine ran but just chattered very bad.


what you could do to since you have the battery already, is find a junk UPS with a bad battery, and wire in the car battery. just make sure the UPS uses a 12 volt battery.
 
hell i already have a UPS with a good battery 0nly thing wrong with it is the power button, its either stuck or broke, i could do something with that if i can find where i put it... and get a crash course in electrics lol i'm paranoid about this subject in particular cuase i moved here in december, and even though i chase hurricanes as a job i've never had my tank effected by it, i lived in jacksonville and sarasota, they never lose power lol. Anyways Tank and refugium are now working fine, i did a lil more tweaking and put a small airator in the sump, heat is mixing well in both tanks its 78. I have a small sea urchin and a coral frag i think ill try to trade for a lil sand rock or algae for my ref. I'm off to take a nap for now though. talk to yall later..
Ryan
 
So as of this morning everything is still working fine. Last night when i was moving some things around i must have cuased a loss of suction from the overflow, cuase i noticed the water in the top tank rising, funny enough it appeared that water was still flowing from the overflow just not as fast.. Fortunatly the return pump isnt too powerfull so i was able to correct it without incident. Now im back at work after having the last two days off so im hoping when i get home my house wont be flooded or something lol. Once home ill be getting ready to go to this meeting tonight see yall there!
Ryan
 
I added a Massive bush of Chaeto last night to the refugium and i see lots of pod activity. Unfortunatly the tank divider is cheap and the screen came out of the track so now i'm looking for a better solution to dividing the refugium from the area i have biofoam/balls and the overflow pours in. Any ideas?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8000833#post8000833 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Ryanqk
I added a Massive bush of Chaeto last night to the refugium and i see lots of pod activity. Unfortunatly the tank divider is cheap and the screen came out of the track so now i'm looking for a better solution to dividing the refugium from the area i have biofoam/balls and the overflow pours in. Any ideas?
Click to expand...

I am against biofoam/balls due to the fact that they will over time start to produce nitrates. I would remove them slowly if I were you.

As for the tank divider, I would say have a glass shop cut you a piece and silicone it in place. Best way to do it.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8001252#post8001252 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ek9vboi
I am against biofoam/balls due to the fact that they will over time start to produce nitrates. I would remove them slowly if I were you.

As for the tank divider, I would say have a glass shop cut you a piece and silicone it in place. Best way to do it.
Click to expand...

About the bio-balls/foam producing nitrates, can you elaborate on how these filtration devises cuase this problem, i mean if you are right that may be the reason i've been having such a problem in the first place....
Ryan
 
As a result, i have removed the bio-balls for now to see how the tank reacts, i took a bio-wheel off my tank 2 days ago... there is only a little more bio-foam in there still ill test after a few days to see if there are results...
Ryan
 
First there wernt many bio-balls thats why i went ahead and removed them since there are very few of them, the bio-wheel i replaced with a skilter 250 a couple days ago which was running in another tank for a couple months, i replaced the carbon and ammonia remover i had inside the skilter which will soon be replaced by a coralife SS65 needlewheel. There is alot more of the biofoam left and pods seem to have taken to it, every time i tried to take it out tons of em swam, or fell out of the pieces. so i am taking my time, as far as bacteria i use Turbo so if i do have a problem its a 3-5 day cycle. very fast and effective bacteria.
Ryan
 
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