Sand Bed in Refugium!

I use a 120g tank as the fuge for my 150DT - it has ~ 6" sugar fine sand, about #60 - #80of LR/LRR, and cheato. Prior to putting the fuge online, my nitrates were pretty much impossible to test because they were so high (DT is home to a 4' Undulated Moray - a VERY messy eater) Now that the fuge has been up for ~ 1 year, the opposite has happened - even after 6 weeks without a water change, my nitrates remain virtually undetectable.
 
Husky - My refugium with 8" of sand, small left over live rock pieces (that were dry when I put them in), and spaghetti algae began pulling my nitrates down almost immediately. Within 90 days of adding, I was within 90% of the max benefit to my nitrates.

The plumbing into my refugium was done a little differently. I used flexible PVC into a rigid straight piece of PVC that I had cut slots into with a table saw. That allowed me to anchor the bottom of the PVC into the sand in the corner of the refugium and direct the flow over the rocks.

After 1 year, my refugium was PACKED with copepods and other cool stuff that have other benefits for my tank.
 
As stated above, it took about 2 or three months to see it really begin to work for me, but it had been a hair algae farm before that. I also seeded it with most of the fine crushed coral that had been in my 60g cube (~30 - 40lb) for the previous 15 or 18 years, so it had a bit of a jumpstart.
 
I was thinking of doing a DSB in my tank but now i think i am leaning more towards doing this in my Sump/refug. I was thinking i could use a good bit of sand from my old tank to speed up the process and just mix it in with some sugar fine sand. Think a month is enough time for it to get going if i put 4-6 inches in there with some live rock and eventually some Chaeto?
 
Refuge ???

Refuge ???

WOW ok I guess I will start out wth the sand and live rock also.

Do you keep it lighted???

Newbie with refuge for 150 bowfront???
 
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