Water change performed from the refugium

[Grkgod36]

My refugium has collected a good bit of ditritus on the bottom . Can I perform water change from my fuge and siphon it out?

And I should I just add the new water to the DT or just back in the fuge ?

 

[Animagus]

It doesn't really matter where you remove the water from, just make sure your ATO doesn't come on while your doing this. You might want to unplug for a few minutes or so just to be safe. You can add the new water wherever you want.

 

[GimpyFin]

^^ This ^^

 

[Sapelo]

Detritus is your enemy so clean when and wherever possible.

 

[bmitchell138]

I used a shop vac on my sump just the other day to clean out the nasty stuff. Worked great.

 

[Grkgod36]

I guess you can only use a shop vac since a siphon wouldn't work being the same height level

 

[formsix]

Yeah, we siphon out of the DT and dump new salt water into the fuge all to take advantage of gravity and pumps. I do sometimes use the baster to suck detritus out of the fuge as part of a water change -- it's a bit time consuming but also gratifying in a strange way So just another option for those w/o a shop vac.

 

[LJLKRL]

I saw a pretty neat pump at the hardware store the other day. You connect it to a drill, and two garden hoses. I am going to go back and pick one up just to clean out my sump.

 

[ziggy2]

I"m building my system on a stand so I can siphon it. Should work out.

 

[reeferheadlouie]

+1 on the shop vac

 

[Bpb]

I've never once siphoned or removed detritus from the sump. Not in 5 years. It tends to break down to nothing on its own. I can see bare glass down there and I don't use a filter sock. I think once your tank is mature enough, and if you don't have a very deep sandbed, detritus is not quite the evil villain everyone makes it out to be. I have to obnoxiously feed my fish several times a day to even get any NO3 reading to show up, and it's quickly gone.

 

[Grkgod36]

My fuge is bare bottom , and has s good amount of detritus along with a bit cyano cause there's hardly any flow in there. And a bit of aptasia but not one in my DT .. Weird. I have two peppermint shrimp that come out at night and scower so maybe that's why..

Care to elaborate on the hoses on the drill you saw ?