Refugium tips (formerly "flow rate thorugh a refugium")

I wouldn't make the return from the sump over the top if you have the chance to get a hole drilled.

Main advantage is the amount of water you can put through a single 1.5" bulkhead vs. a 1.5" bulkhead in an overflow box. The amount of water for the bulkhead will be much more limited. Couple other advantages are that you can do something like a durso standpipe or equivilent to reduce noise of the water falling, you pull off the surface of the water (strainers can too though), and they can be a little safer for things not getting sucked against the strainer and dieing and clogging it up, with an overflow you have a lot more surface area to diffuse the flow, but that is only important if you are pushing a lot of flow, which you won't be if you are using a closed loop in conjunction with the strainers.

There might be other advantages that I do not know about.
 
Didn't know you would get more flow from an overflow box, guess I will have to rethink where I get the tank drilled. Thanks for the help.

Daryl
 
I much rather prefer a suspended matrix like the Chaeto ball or spaced polyester filter pads (on a string to act as a pod condo).
Click to expand...

If I place a polyester filter pad in my sump to try to act as a pod condo do I need to provide lights in my sump? Or can I have healthy pods that live their whole life in the dark?

Thanks,
Chris
 
dfwatson, you probably don't need that much flow through your overflow though, if you are going to use a closed loop for water flow.

Get a barracuda or hammerhead pump for the closed loop, then just use a mag7 or similar for the sump return. You don't need that much flow through your sump, just enough to heat the water, and feed the skimmer. Keeping the flow through the sump slower will help keep microbubbles down, and it sucks having to redo your system because of microbubble problems.
 
I do want enough flow thru the sump/refugium to tumble my cheato without putting another pump in the sump.(just flow from drains) After reading many posts I believe I can tie in the sump return pump with the closed loop pump to both run the single closed manifold.(saw that Steven Pro did it) Now just need good hole placement and correct pump sizes.

Daryl
 
Im not sure what you mean by closed manifold, or what benefit you think you get by doing it that way.

Are you doing a manifold along the top of the tank, or are you doing a closed loop with bulheads along the back of your tank?
 
I am planning a closed loop manifold to go around the top perimeter of the tank for my sole circulation/flow for the whole main tank. I want to power the manifold by using the sump return pump and the closed loop (not to be confused with the closed loop manifold) pump. The benefit that I see is with the manifold I can direct flow to many different areas of the tank and have no poweheads or other plumbing inside the main tank.

Daryl
 
Gotcha. I would hook the sump return into the manifold with a Y fitting then, not a T, if you really want to hook it in. I don't see any benefit to hooking it in vs. putting the sump return into a bulhead you have drilled in the back of the tank, but whatever you like.

It is important to match the size and number of nozzles to you total flow in the manifold. For a 180g for example, if you want 15x, so 2700gph. Run a 1" manifold, with reducing t's. 1/2" would work well with 400gph through each nozzle, so you would want 7 nozzles. I would use loc line, then you can glue the rest of the manifold to stop air leaks and microbubbles, the loc line will give you all the flexability you need.

By the way, I have a sequence barracuda hooked up with 7 1/2" nozzles on a 1" manifold over a 180g, all nozzles get equal flow, works great.
 
I want to combine the two pump flows and their pressure into the manifold for the combine flow effect of both pumps. That way I can have many nozzles coming out of the manifold, running some or cap some as needed for flow in different areas of the tank.

Daryl
 
You will lose more flow piping the sump return pump into the manifold compared to running it right into a bulkhead. There would be fewer bends, and less head height.

I would get the tank drilled low in the back, and use the sump return to put flow behind your rock where the manifold would have trouble reaching, that is my only complaint about the manifold system is that it is tough to get flow behind the rockwork unless you drop the outlet to the bottom of the tank behind the rocks, which puts too much PVC visible IMO.
 
Does it make any sense to have a DSB in my fuge, if little light hits the bottom of the tank? THe Chaeto blocks about 80% of the light?
 
Prezioso,

I am curoius how people answer your question. I am not expert, but I would guess that a deep sand bed would provide you an anoxic area for denitrification and therefore would be good even without light. Not to mention cops and stuff may thrive there. I guess it depends on what you want your refug to accomplish.

Everyone, If I hang poly pads in my sump for a pod condo would the pods need lights to thrive or can I keep them in the dark?

Thanks,
Chris
 
Prezioso, guntercb is right, it depends on the purpose of your fuge.

A DSB, even with only 20% light will provide an anaerobic zone for denitrification, and if you can get a couple cups of sand from a well established tank, you will soon have all kinds of pods, worms, etc. in there.

So yes, it can make very good sense to have a DSB in a fuge.
 
I converted my AquaClear110 into a refugium and it seems to be working great but my chaeto doesn't look like it is doing so well. Alot of it looks like it is loosing color and withering away. I have a clip on 18w mini compact light over the refugium and my MT lights are 1x65w PCs. Am I doing something wrong? Should my lights be on all the time over the fugium or should it be alternate of my MT? Any tips would be great Thanks.
 
I am designing a new sump that will hold about 30gal. Everyone's saying to have high flow to tumble the chaeto, but I have a Mandarin and would like to help out the pod population as much as poossible. Would it be ideal to have 2 seperate compartments, one with high flow for the chaeto and the other with adjustable flow for the refugium (maybe LR rubble and a SSB) for the pods? Thanks.
 
FYI - I made some of the suggested modifications posted in the thread to improve my refugium's performance vis-a-vis Cheto growth and it's been a huge benefit! Thanks to all the contributors!!

I already had a Mag 9.5 pump on the fuge so I figured I had enough flow, but the water wasn't entering the tank in a way that generated the circular flow recommended to tumble the Cheto. The result was that the Cheto wasn't growing that fast and was being grown over by micro-algae. So, I made a spraybar and placed it so that the water entering the fuge shoots across from one side to the other just below the surface. When it hits the far wall, it's deflected downward then across the bottom of the fuge...generating the circular motion recommended.

I did have to place a row of rubble at the base of the far wall to keep the current from sweeping away the Miracle Mud, but that was no biggie.

This and switching from a 65 watt Coralife PC bulb to a pair of the 19 watt bulbs recommended in the link below (go all the way to the bottom of the page the comes up...you'll see the bulb I'm talking about) seem to have made all the difference in the world. The Cheto is growing like wild and the micro algae seems a distant memory.

fishdoc11 originally posted this link very early in the thread...gotta give credit where credit is due. Thanks doc!

http://www.melevsreef.com/fuge_bulb.html
 
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