Refugium IDEA!!!

[Enzo]

This should probably be in the DIY portion of this website, But I thought what the hell.... ANyways my idea is for a refugium for small tanks as big as 29 gallons to 7 gallons. I am in dire need of a refugium but do not have any space for it. So when I was flipping through the doctorfostersmith.com catalog I see a hang on the back refugium. So I am thinking why pay 119 bucks instead of making your own hang on the back refugium. My idea is that you get a fairly large power filter(preferably aquaclears, because of their huge hang on the back filters) and take out all its "inards". Than fill it with all the neccesay things for a refugium. Sire this won't be very big but it will work nicely for a 29 gallon don't you think. Alll you have to do is plug it in and you have a refugium that blows up to 206 gph. Good Idea right :idea: . Anyways just put a light over it and VOILA!!! a Beauitiful refugium...
John :mrgreen:

 

[TheRookie]

I wonder how well that may or may not work. I would think the bigger the better obviously. I used to use a tetra tec pf500 on a fresh water tank. that thing was HUGE.

 

[TheRookie]

something else i just thought of. HOT filters also increase evaporation rate quite a bit.

 

[Joey French]

I was toying with the idea some time ago with an aquaclear 5 billion or something like that, huge filter, but the problem was that I couldn't put any sand in it, as the flow into the large reservoir was near the bottom, flowing up, and you would have had to put some sort of block, like screen near the overflow, to keep the caleurpa from flowing out the top. I finally went with an ecosystem 40 that was running on another reef for a year previously, and it has been the single beat investment I've made in the hobby so far. Joey

 

[gregmoeck]

There has been some talk concerning making a refugium out of a aquaclear. Well, a couple month ago I decided to toss in a bunch of rubble and chunks of live rock in my aqua clear 150. Today I have tons of mysis shrimp running loose in the filter plus the walls and lip are heavly spotted with coraline. I have algae that I have to harvest, not much but it grows daily. It's funky back there and looks great. Last night I slowed the output to minimum position and reall notice a change in the main tank. Everything is open nicely.

Here are some pics of my 10 gallon nano with 96watt powerquad pendant. No skimmer.

Looking down into the aquaclear 150. I think I may add a 300 too

 

[shalegac]

Off the subject but Wow your lights are blue!

 

[vulkum]

HOB filters are ok but the problem is you can't put a sand bed in it. theres alot of folk that use one with just rock and some macro and have good results. you can make a cheap acrylic refugium from one of those critter cages. they come in differant sizes and then just drill them and bulkhead them with a internal powerhad and a few acrylic baffles. it doesn't have to hang on the tank. mine is a custom glass unit i had made and it sits behind the tank.

 

[Enzo]

That is one nice refugium, did you get that custom built for you?

 

[vulkum]

yes i did heres a picture of it before plumbing. i had christian at www.wetdryfilter.com make it for me. he added it to his line of filters at his site. but he will do differant dimensions if you want.

 

[shalegac]

Do you think you could get away without a light on a HOB aquaclear fuge? I was thinking just using some LR. I would love to put some caleurpa in there but I just can't afford the light right now. What do you all think? Also as usual a debate has been going on about partical size of sand in a DSB. Well how about trying some crushed coral as a sand bed in the HOB aquaclear?

 

[Bleeding Blue]

You know, wombat made a refugium out of a small trash can and some bulkhead fittings. He put all his pumps in there, and has taken out the float valve, and started growing macroalgea.

http://reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=26657&start=0

Mike