Refugium ideas for a 200

[Karm40]

I have the usual full blown system, reactor skimmer, lots of flow, MH 400 watters, etc. A few fish and lots of Sps's mostly frags, but a couple big pieces.
I want to add a refugium and there isn't any room under or near the tank. The thought was to put the refugium outside. The spot is about 15-20 feet from the tank. The tank is in the middle of the house and is visible from 3 sides. One end of the tank is butted up to a wall and the returns run throught the wall. I have vents that take the air outside.

OK, so here's the deal, I have an old 100 gallon acrylic tank that I thought I could use. It's my understanding that I want minimal flow through the refugium, and I should return the water to the top of the display tank, so that way it doesn't run through any pumps, (like the one in the sump).

So, is there a way I could safely pump the water to the main tank from the refugium without killing the bugs that I am trying to supply? I would like to gravity feed the water from the sump to the refugium and somehow return the water safely.

I really should supply some photos, but can't find the time to shoot them and put them up. Hopefully tonight.
Thought, comments??? :roll:
Thanks,
Mark

 

[CraigLampe]

as we talked about in one of these other threads about refugiums, I don't think the pump pushing water back to the main tank will kill many, probably less than 5% of kritters which get pushed through, probably another 5% will be damaged, but alive enought to be eaten!!!

Having a refugium outside your house (if I understand what you are doing correctly) may be hazardous for a couple of reasons, temperature, rain, mainly temperature changes outside which will DIRECTLY affect your main tank (I really don't think you mean outside the house... I must be misuderstanding... :wink: )

 

[Karm40]

You got it right, I do want to put it outside. I live in So. Ca. near the beach. There are probably 2 weeks out of the year when it gets into the 80's. It actually might help to keep my temp down. I was going to enclose it so it would be protected from the elements.
Thanks,
Mark

 

[esmithiii]

OK, so here's the deal, I have an old 100 gallon acrylic tank that I thought I could use. It's my understanding that I want minimal flow through the refugium, and I should return the water to the top of the display tank, so that way it doesn't run through any pumps, (like the one in the sump).

So, is there a way I could safely pump the water to the main tank from the refugium without killing the bugs that I am trying to supply? I would like to gravity feed the water from the sump to the refugium and somehow return the water safely.

I don't think you need to worry about pumps killing the organism, especially if you use gravity to return the water to the main tank from the refugium. That is the way most people do it. Keep in mind that the refugium will need to be substantially higher than main tank if it is that far away (since the slope of the line back to the main tank will need to be steep enough so that the pump pumping into the refugium does not outpace the water returning to the main tank.)

As for keeping it outside my only concerns would be people or animals messing with it, excessive sun (which could be a good thing), rain/other contaminants (you could cover the tank) and temperature (which you are right, probably won't be too big of a concern unless the tank is in full sun most the day.

 

[Karm40]

That is one problem I have. The tank is about 4 feet off the floor and is 30 inches high. I figure that the outside ground level is 16 inches below the inside floor, so, does that mean the outside sump would have to be 10 feet above the ground? That will be a challenge!
Mark 8O

 

[Nelliereefster]

One other possible fix is to set the acrylic up inside the house on its own stand as a separate display tank. Then you can plumb the two together, and have the acrylic set-up as a seagrass lagoon refugium full of inverts, urchins, etc... That way, you can display a completely different motif of the marine environment, and benefit your main tank with a refugium. Make sure the refugium overflow is higher than the reef tank water line so that water can gravity feed back into the reef. Then the reef sump pump will feed the refugium. This kind of set-up can be strikingly beautiful.

 

[Nelliereefster]

One other possible fix is to set the acrylic up inside the house on its own stand as a separate display tank. Then you can plumb the two together, and have the acrylic set-up as a seagrass lagoon refugium full of inverts, urchins, etc... That way, you can display a completely different motif of the marine environment, and benefit your main tank with a refugium. Make sure the refugium overflow is higher than the reef tank water line so that water can gravity feed back into the reef. Then the reef sump pump will feed the refugium. This kind of set-up can be strikingly beautiful.

 

[GLD]

Questions for Nelliereefster:

Can the seagrass lagoonal refugium that you describe handle the same flowrate as the sump, or should he split the flow from the sump's pump so that some of the flow goes directly back to the main tank with the rest passing through the sea-grass refugium?

How would you set-up the sea-grass refugium? how much sand, lighting, species etc.

 

[Nelliereefster]

The way I would plumb things together would be for the reef to overflow to a sump in its stand. Then a pump pushes water to the refugium. You would have to make sure the refugium tank was at a higher height (waterline to waterline) than the reef, so that gravity would establish return flow to the reef. Flow rate for this set-up should be on the order of 1000 gallons per hour, or higher IMO. The limiting feature to achieve this would be the size of the plumbing flowing return water back to the reef. At least 1-1/2 inch pipe would be required.

I have an 80 gallon refugium that has a flow rate up to about 2000 gallons per hour. It's a myth that you want a trickle through a refugium. Eventually, when the caulerpa grows in, it will act a detritus filter and cause settling as water passes through.

When I say "seagrass" I mean macro-algae refugium. The cheapest way to do it is to use a rubbermaid container. Eggcrate can be used on one end to isolate a pump suction/overflow. I use a plenum in mine, but a deep sand bed will work just fine.

I use a mix of sugar sand and a slightly larger grain at least 4 inches deep. Next, look around to see if you can find some very fresh, uncured, algae populated live rock. As a boost to get things going, you can seed it with live sand and as many macro-algae species as you can find. Some will take, some won't.

I advocate lighting a refugium 24 hours a day. Once established, you can crop back the algae once every two weeks or so to about a third of its bulk.

 

[esmithiii]

It's a myth that you want a trickle through a refugium.

I am not sure I agree with this statement. I have high flow in my refugium and still see detritus build up. I also think it limits the types of organisms that inhabit the refugium. Keep in mind that you want some food and detritus to end up in the refugium to feed the fauna there.

Ernie

 

[Nelliereefster]

My overall point is that you can plumb inlet flow without the need of splitting/reducing it through a refugium, provided you're not running a 10 gallon refugium on a 1500 gallon per hour pump.

Inlet flow can be scattered by rock or diffuser walls, see link to my fuge:
http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/nellieusmc/l ... efster%27s

Once the algae grows in, it will further diffuse flow and facilitate settling. If the fuge is not getting enough to eat, you can always feed it too, with flake, or anything else.

The fuge in the link has about 2000 gallons per hour going through. As you can see, the eggcrate, screen covered walls diffuse the water fairly well, as evidenced by the algae standing up vice being blown over.

 

[Karm40]

The way I would plumb things together would be for the reef to overflow to a sump in its stand. Then a pump pushes water to the refugium. You would have to make sure the refugium tank was at a higher height (waterline to waterline) than the reef, so that gravity would establish return flow to the reef. Flow rate for this set-up should be on the order of 1000 gallons per hour, or higher IMO. The limiting feature to achieve this would be the size of the plumbing flowing return water back to the reef. At least 1-1/2 inch pipe would be required.


Currently :wink: the overflow does go into a sump under the tank. I was thinking that I would let gravity feed the refugium and then pump it back to the return area of the sump. Is there a formula for distance vs. slope? Assuming that a low percentage of bugs would get munched in the return pump, this would be ok with me. I'm not really too worried about the flow rate, as I would want to have a slow flow. My main concern is the ability to balance the pump rate with the gravity flow rate.
Thanks to everyone for the feedback, it really helps!!!
Mark

 

[dgasmd]

You can also put the refugium outside just higher than the sump"s water level, put a pump in the sump to feed the refugium and gravity drain it into the sump. That way you don't have the killing of pods you are concerned about since all pumps will be equal as far as this goes. The drain to the sump should be fairly large like a 1 1/2" or a 2" pipe. I am doing this in my large 550 gal set up.
Having the refugium outside will give you lots of benefits like fresh air, sunlight, temperature regulation, etc. So long as you cover the top or shelter it from the bad elements, you should be fine.

 

[Anonymous]

That last idea is the best one. You can't have two pumps returning water from two different locations, but you can have two pumps located in the sump.

 

[crazy in OR]

dan- this may be a little late and the thread may well be dead by now, but why can we not have two returns from different locations? am i missing something? :?:

 

[monkeyboy]

It doesn't matter where the pumps that feed the refugium are located, just as long as gravity is used to drain the 'fuge. I mean, you can't have water pumped in, then pumped out also, they won't be equal and you'll end up with either a flood or a dry tank.

But maybe that's not what crazy in OR is asking, but then again i don't see where dan is talking about 2 pumps from 2 different sources. Alright, now i'm confused...