refugium and propagation tank?

[marleycoalby]

I am getting ready to set up a 40 gallon tank to supplement my 125 reef and am wondering about pros and cons to using the 40 for prop and fuge.I can either split the tank or use the same chamber for both.Splitting it is no problem but I want to try to get as big a fuge as possible.Thanks for any input

 

[Bax]

You want to have a drain (influent) area

skimmer area

refugium area and return area

there are lots of ways to do this

what are the dims of the 40g? what type of skimmer and return pump do you use?

 

[marleycoalby]

the 40 is 36wx16hx15d it has built in overflow on th back 3" that I plan on using for a gravity fed return to the main tank.I was hoping to use the remaining 12" in the front part 8"high for my fuge and the top 4" for propigating corals.I'm not sure if I can share the same chamber for both.My skimmer and bio balls are in a different sump.I have a variety of pumps that would work.

 

[Bax]

Oh! I see. I use my fuge as a place to hold frags. I just upgraded so I havn't finished the fuge yet, but I have LR piled on one end. I need to build an eggcrate screen to seperate my chato, on the other end, from the LR. Then I want to build eggcrate racks in the LR section for frags. Currently the frags litter the top of the LR.

 

[MaryAnn_W]

I have a seperate sump and refugium on all my tanks. Like you I went with gravity feed back into the main tank from the fuge. I did this to try and help more pods survive the journey back into the main tank without having to go through a pump.

I did a seperate system like this because I wanted medium to high flow through sump and very low to low flow through refugium. My beliefs are I want to give my macroalgae in fuge the most time as I can to help filter my water. While I want more water to touch my skimmer, heater, and help mix my dosing in the sump.

The reasonI bring this up is because a prop tank I would think would want a high rate of flow to allow as much water to pass the corals for feeding as possible. I don't think low flow of a fuge would be compatible with what is best for a prop tank.

So im my opinion here are my pros/cons for this setup:
pros:
saves space
saves money
cons:
wrong flow
wrong lighting

I value health of the animals over all else so my opinion is the plan is not that great.

PS:
First post ever, hooray for me.

reason for edit:
typo fixing

 

[Bax]

I am only pushing about 200 gph through the fuge. I run a CL at about 850 gph through my chiller into my fuge. Gives the flow I want for frags LR & macros in the fuge and services my chiller.

 

[marleycoalby]

If I was to seperate the fuge and prop tank side by side I could control the flow in one chamber more for the corals.Or if the fuge was under my prop tank and I used my flow right across the top of the corals and left my fuge with low flow It would achieve the same thing right.

 

[bigcdc]

This is how I did my diy sump out of acyrilic, I have an area for equipment i.e heater, skimmer.... then it spills into a fuge type area, and from there it feeds into a raceway which narrows the flow area to increase the amount of water flowing over a given point. I'm pretty happy with what I've built it works fairly well and I feel that it maximizes the avalible space avalible to me

The only different from my paint drawing is the bubble trap, I did not include that in my final design. I don't really have a problem with microbubbles so a bubble trap isn't nessisarry.

Chris

 

[Bax]

Keep in mind, if the tsame tank serves both purposes, your flow through it from you system is one thing, set it as you like, "slow". You can still use PHs or CLs to provide targeted flow to your frags, and the macros will like this internal flow as well. The you lighting services your frags and macros as well.