RefugiumForum - Hang On Tank Refugium. A refugium is used to grow macro algae and smaller organisms (like amphipods and copepods) for the animals in the main tank. You can also use the refugium as an algae filter. As the macro algae grows it uses nitrates and phosphates and you can crop the algae as needed. The macro algae in the refugium will help keep nuisance algae from growing in the display tank (if the refugium is attached to the main system).
OK ... The experiment is over ! My new sump/fuge has arrived (at least the acrylic boxes)
Recap:
My aquarium stand is divided into two compartments. Space is at a premium, so I design a split sump/fuge. I removed my Eheim 2227 Wet/Dry filter
and the old 5.5 gallon refugium. This is just some of the steps so far ... more picture later today ! Happy Easter !
OK .. So I get everything put together. In the sump I glue one baffle for a return section. In the refugium I drill two holes for the drain bulkheads.
Here's what it looked like .... I did say LOOKED like ...!!
My new acrylic tank cracked at the lower corner .. !!!!!
I think it was dropped durning shipping, and didn't notice it because the blue film was still on the bottom !!
Just my luck lately ...LOL. I have placed the protein skimmer and heater back in the display tank. Ran out and bought a plastic file box from
Office Depot for my sump, until I get around to fixing the acrylic sump. It may look ghetto, but it works just as good !
My repair job.
The first thing I did was pour weld-on #4 into the cracks. Letting it dry for a few days.
Then I took three pieces of 1/8" acrylic sheet and glued them over the cracks from the inside.
Letting it dry for a few more days. Water testing three more days ... No leaks !
So far.
Looks like one of my repair jobs! Get-r-Dun. Just watch those cracks to make sure they don't spread in the opposite directions. Hopefully it'll hold.
Gotta love this hobby. What other hobby lets you try on so many hats? Pet keeper / veterinarian, plumber, carpenter, researcher, photographer, dietician, electrician, glass worker!
Repairs are complete ! (crossing fingers still)
It's be a week since I repair and install my repaired sump under my display tank. Here's the first pic.
In this photo you will notice I have added about 5 lbs of live rock and the cheato has grown since the first photo. It doubles in size about ever three weeks.
Copepods everywhere !!!!
The copepods are doing great in the refugium. I feed them phytoplex daily. You can also see the brown algae on the tank sides. The copepods seem to like eating this also.
In the photo I zoomed in on a adult surrounded by many babies ... These are future food for my mandarin.
awesome shots dude - I have to make time to get one of these setup. I'd like to grow some Gracilaria parvispora for my tang.
I was going to do the same thing, but I read cheato was easier to keep. I really like having a sump. The display tank is always the full, only the sump needs refilling. Also the skimmer is prone to overflowing. Now if it does that, it doesn't get the floors wet. Do you have enough space for a sump/fuge under your tank ?
Nope, no space for them - I'm going to convert an old hang-on the back of the tank aquaclear for the refugium this week. I'll post pics when it's setup.
I tinkered too much and messed up the old aquaclear (cracked it), so I ordered a new one and it should be here Monday and I'm waiting on the Gracilaria and chaeto I ordered, should be here at the end of this week. I'll set it up this week and then get some pics up. I'm really interested in the export capabilities of these macro algaes.
How did you crack it? What size did you get, I wish now that I had got a larger size and smaller impeller, more room. I may clean it out really well and put it on my FW tank and get a large one. Do you think a white l.e.d. light good enough to light it and grow macro algae, it's the marina type.
What do you meen by export capabilities, how they are beneficial?
I got the 110 - old version number was 500. As the algae grows it takes up nutrients (nitrates and phosphates) and when it gets large enough you can separate (prune) some of it to export nutrients, or you can feed it to your herbivorous fish which would be recycling nutrients. As the macro algae grows it is also competing with the less desirable forms of algae for nutrients, so with less nutrients to go around, hopefully there will be less of a chance for slime algae and hair algae to develop. I don't know if the hang on aquaclear will be big enough to house enough macros to notice, time will tell. If not, I'm going to use an old 10 gallon.
A moonlight wouldn't be enough light for the macros. I'm going to start with a 13 watt power compact clip on light over the aquaclear and see how the algae does. Got the galaxy 2 light here: http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...pc=1&N=0&Nty=1
OK it's been about two months since my last post on this thread.
The refugium is doing quite well, there has been a few changes since I installed the sump/fuge. The first thing I need to mention is the original acrylic tank I bought for the sump cracked. After repairing the cracks it began leaking again after three weeks. It tank drove me crazy ! I took it out of my cabinet and tested it outside for one week ... No leaks ... !! The wife told me not to use it ever again !! (can't blame her, wet floors and all). So I purchased a new custom glass sump from the LFS for the low price of $35. I should have went with glass from the beginning. LOL The new sump works great. The wall thickness is 1/4" and very strong for a 10 gallon tank. OK enough talking, here's the picture.
New things are:
1) Homemade bubble trap, because I got tired of cleaning those darn filter socks.
2) The fuge has about 40 lbs of oolitic sand for NNR (natural nitrate reduction). This is my RDSB (remote deep sand bed) which works great. My nitrate went from 40 PPM to about 5 ppm.
Looks good. I think I have those same timers on my tank too What do you mean by homemade bubble trap
I've read that DSB's eventually lose their nitrate depletion efficiency and essentially become useless after a couple years. If you ever see your nitrates go up for no reason and you might think it's because of this could you post this, curious if this is true.
Looks good. I think I have those same timers on my tank too What do you mean by homemade bubble trap
I've read that dsb's eventually lose their nitrate depletion efficiency and essentially become useless after a couple years. If you ever see your nitrates go up for no reason and you might think it's because of this could you post this, curious if this is true.
Yeah those timers work great, except they're so wide. Also your right about the DSB losing it's ability to reduce nitrates. The larger the amount of sand the longer it will last. I think mine will last only about a year. Then I will have to replace it. That's why people prefer a remote DSB, it's easier to replace a bucket of sand then all the sand in your display tank.
The bubble trap keeps bubbles from your overflow to a minimum. If you look at the hose on the left side of the sump, you can see a square plastic container. The water from the display tank empties out into this container, through some blue filter floss then through a bag of carbon than through about 3 lbs of live rock. The floss gets changed every other day. This is way easier than .... Changing a filter sock --> soaking filter sock in bleach ---> washing filter sock in washing machine ---> throughly rinsing the bleach out of the filter sock --> and letting it dry for 24-48 hours. I got tired just writing all that ... LOL
O ok, that makes sense for those. So when the water comes from the overflow and down into your sump it creates bubbles and these are bad. Do they make noise or are they bad for another reason?
Not really bad, just dumps bubbles back up the return line into the main display tank. Also causes to much salt creep under the tank !!! ATM hows your refugium coming along ? Did you ever get any macro algae for it ?
Not really bad, just dumps bubbles back up the return line into the main display tank. Also causes to much salt creep under the tank !!! ATM hows your refugium coming along ? Did you ever get any macro algae for it ?
o ok. Well I still have live rock in it but it's at a stand still now. I found some types of algae at a lfs and my friend has some cheato but right now I don't have a light for my tank. I'm thinking of asking my dad to order one of the clip on cp fluorescent bubls off drs. foster and smith to light it but I don't have enough cash right now. I'm getting a job at the end of august and I'm going to start getting more corals and hopefully a light to get it going. I may buy a larger aquaclear, put in a smaller impeller to slow the flow down and use that but not sure. I'd like to get a separate tank but I can't get my tank drilled and I'll have to try and build my own overflow (that's what it's called right, having a brain fart ) so not sure what's going to happen with that. The tank is doing fine now without it so I'll probably talk to my saltwater store by me and see if they can help me out.
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The wife told me not to use it ever again !! (can't blame her, wet floors and all). So I purchased a new custom glass sump from the 
What do you mean by homemade bubble trap 
) so not sure what's going to happen with that. The tank is doing fine now without it so I'll probably talk to my saltwater store by me and see if they can help me out.