Plumbing this refugium?

rathman

rathman

AC Members
Oct 10, 2005
39
0
0
Newport News Virginia
I need all the ideas and advice I can get to plumb this refugium. It's for my 92g corner freshwater tank. I have done some research, not much, but all the help I can get to fill it with what I need and plumb it to my tank. The refugium tank is 20h. I have a WD3 wet/dry with a 950gph pump for my return. What else do I need to make this set-up work? Any and all ideas are welcome and greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance....

J
 
Let me get this straight, the wet/dry is already plumbed in? It looks as though it is. And you want to add a refugium? Has the tank been drilled to alow for an overflow? It dosn't look like it has.

First of all how do you want the water to be moved from the refugium to the wet dry sump, by adding another pump to the wet/dry and feeding it into the refugium? Or do you want it to come dirrectly from the tank?(this will reduce your wet/dry's filtering ability by reducing the flow to the media. The other thing you need to think about is getting the water to the wet/dry from the refugium and if you are mechanicaly minded you could build it yourself, but if you can't then this is your best bet.
http://www.marinedepot.com/aquarium_overflow_boxes_cpr.asp?ast=&key=

If you have any questions let me know.
 
Ok good start.......

Scenario #1, are you saying it is best to run the overflow from the main tank into the sump (as it is now) then use the existing return and dump it into the refugium, then get an additional pump and submerge it in the refugium to return it to the main tank? (would have to be the exact same flow same flow as the first pump or I will have a flood,I would imagine)

Scenario #2, or are you saying it is best to throw an overflow box on the main tank and drain it into the refugium and them pump it back into the main tank or back into the sump?

J
 
I am capable of building it myself....

If i decide to get another pump to transfer the water from the refugium, how would I get the water in the refugium?

I'm thinking there are many ways to do this task but I am a person who wants to do it the right, best, most efficient way possible no cutting corners.
 
What I was suggesting was to put an extra pump in the the wet/dry sump and plumb it into the refugium, then run the overflow box from the refugium back the the wet/dry sump, that way there is no risk of overflowing the refugium b/c the overflow box will take care of that. Also this will require smaller pump.

For my personal choice I would get an extra pump and put it in the wet/dry sump and plumb it into the main tank, if the main tank can handle the extra flow that is. Then I would plumb a T pipe in before the the sump, run one end of the T pipe into the sump and the other into the refugium and plumb a ball valve into the pipe that goes into the refugium(to control the water flow into the refugium). Then put the overflow box on the refugium and plumb it back into the wet/dry sump.

In any case to ensure no overflowing is to occur it is essential that you have some sort of overfow system implymented. Using pumps to try to balance water flow is not only risky it requires a lot of work to ensure that there is always a balance, and IME and IMO deffinately not the way to go.
 
The T pipe is probably the way I will go. So with the overflow box on my refugium feed back into main tank, does this work with gravity or is pumped some way? I plan on having my refugium under the main tank, inside the stand next to my sump.
J
 
Could I T pipe the downpipe from main tank into sump and refugium then use the overflow box to siphon back into the sump or is it best to run it back to main tank as questioned before?
 
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