Refugium Question
- Thread starter stourm
- Start date
Hey Tina, Gig Harbor huh?
I grew up in Eastgate between Bellevue and Issaquah.
Since you asked, here is my take on what you wrote and IMO you were pretty much right. There are a couple of confusing statements that you made about the "new pump". You will have to have some sort of pump to circulate the water through the refugium which can be pushing or pulling. If you are using a siphon set up, then the safer bet would be to use the pump in the refugium.
As far as the outside filters go, you could just about get rid of both of them with a mature tank and refugium. If you want something for mechanical, keep the penguin. The Millinium filters are a neat idea but with the air venturi system you tend to have a few micro bubbles in the tank which is not the greatest thing for the siphon set up (whether it is an overflow box or not).
For the lighting, the MH isnt going to create "mad algae" if the Kelvin rating is the correct wavelength. One of the studies I did was to take a 29 gallon tank and run extreme lighting over it with different spectrums to see the changes in growth in certain species. This tank had a 250w MH with 2 75w VHO lamps as well. Algae was not a problem until we used the 5k MH lamp. Even then it wasnt to bad. Heat is the issue there.
LR in the refugium isnt really a must. Some people use the Miracle mud, some use sand, some caulerpa refugiums actually have the caulerpa free floating. There are a few different ways you can do this. You also dont have to have the refugium lower than the tank. The water level will be lower than the tank because of the siphon but the tank itself does not have to be lower. If you are worried about overflowing a tank, hook up a float switch on the pump that will shut it off in case of siphon break. If it were me setting up the refugium, since it is plex, I would rework the tank to create an overflow refugium back to the tank. In this case the refugium is slightly higher than the aquaium with a free flow back into the main tank. The pump goes in the aquarium with this set up. This pretty much eliminates the danger of overflowing.
I grew up in Eastgate between Bellevue and Issaquah.
Since you asked, here is my take on what you wrote and IMO you were pretty much right. There are a couple of confusing statements that you made about the "new pump". You will have to have some sort of pump to circulate the water through the refugium which can be pushing or pulling. If you are using a siphon set up, then the safer bet would be to use the pump in the refugium.
As far as the outside filters go, you could just about get rid of both of them with a mature tank and refugium. If you want something for mechanical, keep the penguin. The Millinium filters are a neat idea but with the air venturi system you tend to have a few micro bubbles in the tank which is not the greatest thing for the siphon set up (whether it is an overflow box or not).
For the lighting, the MH isnt going to create "mad algae" if the Kelvin rating is the correct wavelength. One of the studies I did was to take a 29 gallon tank and run extreme lighting over it with different spectrums to see the changes in growth in certain species. This tank had a 250w MH with 2 75w VHO lamps as well. Algae was not a problem until we used the 5k MH lamp. Even then it wasnt to bad. Heat is the issue there.
LR in the refugium isnt really a must. Some people use the Miracle mud, some use sand, some caulerpa refugiums actually have the caulerpa free floating. There are a few different ways you can do this. You also dont have to have the refugium lower than the tank. The water level will be lower than the tank because of the siphon but the tank itself does not have to be lower. If you are worried about overflowing a tank, hook up a float switch on the pump that will shut it off in case of siphon break. If it were me setting up the refugium, since it is plex, I would rework the tank to create an overflow refugium back to the tank. In this case the refugium is slightly higher than the aquaium with a free flow back into the main tank. The pump goes in the aquarium with this set up. This pretty much eliminates the danger of overflowing.
Thanks for the help!
Alright guys, first of all thank you for the great recommendations. I appreciate each reply to this question. I would like to clear up a few of the points I may have been a little vague on and also I would like to make sure that I have the right idea based upon all of what you guys said so I am going to 'diagram', text-wise of course, what I believe to be the correct way of setting up this refugium based on your responses.
First, I want this refugium to be several things. I would like it to act as sort of a large biological filter. I was planning on dumping quite a bit of live sand into the bottom of it, maybe tossing a few small live rocks and (I found this idea on another website at some point) going to the most local place that sells live rock (which is like an hour drive) and trying to get a bunch of that sludge an gravel that lay at the bottom of a live rock tank pretty cheap just to sort of seed it. That stuff usually has tons of copepods, bristle worms, and other critters. I wanted it to be a place where I could add the chemicals so they had time to mix around and dilute before getting to the fish and my corals. You don't have a lot of water for dilution with a 29 gallon tank, especially since I already have a lot of live rock in it. And of course grow some macroalgae of some ilk, I was assuming caulpera was the best to use but after reeding some of your posts I may want to look further. Probably most importantly, it would help me maintain the water level in my tank. I have pretty hefty evaporation and with only 29 gallon tank it shows quickly. I think it would be easier to maintain the level with a refugium.
Because of the layout of my tank and where it is, there is an impossibility of placing the refugium above it, however I can place it beside the main tank but at a much higher height...say making sure that water level of the refugium would be an inch or so higher than the main tank? I would then drill an overflow hole into the refugium, about water level height, and plumb it so it dumps back into the main tank using PVC pipe. I would place a powerhead or water pump into the main tank and have it pump water from the main tank up into the refugium. By doing this, I would raise the water level of the refugium causing it to dump directly back into the main tank. In the case of a power outage, the pump stops pumping and the water in the refugium only drains down to below the overflow I had drilled. If the water levels in the two tanks were fine to begin with, and this were to happen, then I shouldn't have to worry about a big mess right? If I understood correctly, this eliminates the need for an overflow box? Also, what would be the best way to make sure that my overflow didn't get clogged up somehow causing the powerhead to overflow my refugium? Thanks again guys!
Alright guys, first of all thank you for the great recommendations. I appreciate each reply to this question. I would like to clear up a few of the points I may have been a little vague on and also I would like to make sure that I have the right idea based upon all of what you guys said so I am going to 'diagram', text-wise of course, what I believe to be the correct way of setting up this refugium based on your responses.
First, I want this refugium to be several things. I would like it to act as sort of a large biological filter. I was planning on dumping quite a bit of live sand into the bottom of it, maybe tossing a few small live rocks and (I found this idea on another website at some point) going to the most local place that sells live rock (which is like an hour drive) and trying to get a bunch of that sludge an gravel that lay at the bottom of a live rock tank pretty cheap just to sort of seed it. That stuff usually has tons of copepods, bristle worms, and other critters. I wanted it to be a place where I could add the chemicals so they had time to mix around and dilute before getting to the fish and my corals. You don't have a lot of water for dilution with a 29 gallon tank, especially since I already have a lot of live rock in it. And of course grow some macroalgae of some ilk, I was assuming caulpera was the best to use but after reeding some of your posts I may want to look further. Probably most importantly, it would help me maintain the water level in my tank. I have pretty hefty evaporation and with only 29 gallon tank it shows quickly. I think it would be easier to maintain the level with a refugium.
Because of the layout of my tank and where it is, there is an impossibility of placing the refugium above it, however I can place it beside the main tank but at a much higher height...say making sure that water level of the refugium would be an inch or so higher than the main tank? I would then drill an overflow hole into the refugium, about water level height, and plumb it so it dumps back into the main tank using PVC pipe. I would place a powerhead or water pump into the main tank and have it pump water from the main tank up into the refugium. By doing this, I would raise the water level of the refugium causing it to dump directly back into the main tank. In the case of a power outage, the pump stops pumping and the water in the refugium only drains down to below the overflow I had drilled. If the water levels in the two tanks were fine to begin with, and this were to happen, then I shouldn't have to worry about a big mess right? If I understood correctly, this eliminates the need for an overflow box? Also, what would be the best way to make sure that my overflow didn't get clogged up somehow causing the powerhead to overflow my refugium? Thanks again guys!
