Refugium Design Advice!

That is what my design is going for. Fast flow over the top to keep cheato nice and clean. The flow should be nice and slow at bottom of fuge for pods etc... The fuge area is approx. 28"x24"x21" of water volume. Flow should be much slower at bottom.

I think it wont die yet balance out with the amount of junk you feed it.

Did you end up settling on 8x turnover? What dimensions are your fuge? I think in this situation there are many ways to accomplish the same thing. Tangster is very knowledgeable from the post i have read. If your getting good results why change what works. However, many people are getting good results in different ways. I like to try different things to figure out what will work best as I am fairly inexperienced.

I will have very little sand (.5 to 1") and LR in DT (40lbs). I think a large volume in the fuge will help. Again the actual macro area is 28x24 surface area. Not that big. I can always drop a 5gallon tank inside the fuge to accomplish a remote dsb if needed in future. I hope that a thin layer of miracle mud and cheato will be enough. I think the fuge is a little to wide but i wont be saving any money making it narrower and it wont hurt having it larger then needed.

Have you ever tried it? I have not. I have seen it used on very nice setups with good results. I have also seen good results without miracle mud. I figured i might as well try it.

Water from DT enters at Sump filter sock. I would prefer to run it directly to fuge filter sock so i have more flow through fuge but I dont want to slow the Overflow from the DT with the extra 4' of pipe. The overflow pipe already runs 12' horizontally from DT. You think extra 4' will make much of a difference? My tank is an elos 160xl and the overflow is slow flow. I think optimally about 600gph and up to 900gph but loud.

I would like to have just 1 pump to save money on electricity. I'm afraid of micro bubbles if i have 2500gph flowing through those baffles. You think the micro bubbles would be a problem? Im also kind of scared of overflowing the tank but i guess it shouldn't be a problem. I can just dial in the exact flow i wont and not touch it after.

 

Critters need O2. the bed needs to be able to circulate. ditritus clogs it and chokes it out. Critters can't live and maintain the bed. Here is a good article on beds.

How Sandbeds REALLY Work by Ronald L. Shimek, Ph.D. - Reefkeeping.com

It was 12x18x15 with 5" DSB. I was doing about 100 gph or so for 15g actual water volume. And ya... that's just it... from what I have found there is no "right way" in this hobby rather a wide range of sucsessful ways to run a reef.

Sounds good.

No, too exspensive. And I'm not knocking it either, just real expensive. Just in general I try to forgo with specialty stuff. This hobby is expensive enough without going the specialty proprietary stuff route. I put 2" of clay in my fuge and 3" of oolitic sand.

4" will make no difference. Nice tank too. That is a very nice shape to me. Your bulkhead will only flow so much, but if you use larger PVC from tank to sump then you will not have to worry about restrictions. You know you can do what ever the bulkhead can do.

2500 gph will be a lot but it does not sound like your overflow will even do that. As far as the bubble traps you just need to make them wider. The wider they are the lower the velocity and the more effective they are.

.... and ya I didn't get it. So 900 gph to the sump.... then a pump puts out 2500 gph to the frag tank which overflows to the fuge and back to the skimmer section.... then return pump puts it back to the DT.

So the frag tank is half the cross section of the fuge and will have twice the velocity. Great or frags but a very inefficient way to get flow in a tank. Big pumps using lots of electricity and head loss compared to a power head. It's good if it is not cheaper, and volume is always good but perhaps the fuge could be smaller to keep flows up.... but ya, won't work with taking 2500gph out of the skimmer compartment and putting it back into the return section. Water would have to flow backwards.

 

ok, I understand

I am using pretty much same setup right now. My return pump is an eheim 1262 (900gph at 0ft). Drains split between skimmer and fuge. My fuge (30"x12"x18") is 30g with 3" to 4" sand bed. Fuge gets approx 150 to 200 gph i'm guessing. Except i use filter sock on drain that goes to skimmer section. I recently put a powerhead in fuge to try to keep detritus in water column. Probably not necessary.

lol, I just did some searches on them. I am not thrilled though. I might experiment later on after i see what system does without one. I like to take things slow with what i don't have experience with. Makes a lot of sense though and looks easy to make. I could set one up on top of Sump if needed later on but i wouldn't solely depend on it now because i don't really have experience with them.

 

Ya ATS look like a lot of work. I tried to be as maintenance free as I could. I used very fine filters but found when I took them out my skimmer picked up the slack. I hate cleaning filters too.

I had a power head on my controller to come on after lights out. At night I would put my skimmer on a feed cycle of 4 hours off. Dose some Rotties or oyster eggs and have the power head turn on for 3 hours to clean the sump and feed everything out for the night. Corals were fat and happy.

I didn't put one in the fuge and figured it would be processed and sort of thought of a power head in the fuge as a blender to all the pods.

 

Ya it is expensive, the price makes me hesitant. I really want to try it though and see what i like better at least for a year or 2. Has to be replaced anyway, if i feel it is the same thing pretty much i will just replace it after couple years with a DSB. I am still debating going either route. Need to do more research.

Thank you, you are right. I will just extend all of the the overflow piping to the fuge. Then i dont need as large of a pump to get flow as i will already have 900 gph max from overflow of DT.

Well if i extend the overflow of the DT to enter fuge then that will be 900gph from DT overflow plus 1100gph or so from Frag Tank overflow to get 2000gph in fuge. If i did this with one pump from my return section and made the baffles 2" apart do you think i would have a problem with micro bubbles? I would want an energy efficient pump. Something like the ATB flowstar 3200 (only 115w) or similar for less money. I believe its around 2400gph at 3' (frag tank height) and 2100 at 5' (DT height). So ya theoretically the fuge overflow should be able to handle up to 2400gph or so. Maybe ill add a second 2" bulkhead?

I would need pump for frags anyway. Since i need a more flow in fuge i might as well let the frags benefit from the additional gph. I do like the idea of using one pump like the flowstar i mentioned if i can design the baffles so i dont have problems with micro bubbles I think its worth it. Only 35w more then my current eheim 1262.