10 DIY Refugium using fluval 304 as return.

I have this theory and im hoping it will all work out. Sorry for the crappy phone pic. I will post more pics tommorow. Water will go from my 55 through an overflow down under my cabinet to a 10 gallon tank with no baffles but the pipe will be directly connected to an under gravel filter inlet and for the water to return to the tank I will put the intake from my fluval on the other end above the gravel or on the other side hole for the under gravel filter. It will then go to the fluval and be filtered and back to my tank. The fluval is rated at 260 gph. I figure this will be good flow for just a refugium. The reason I'm using gravel is because sand would obviously not stay in place or make a cloudy mess and the main thing is just the gravel weight to keep the plastic piece down. I'm just going to put a few pieces of rock and chaeto in here and use a regular fish tank light and bulb for lighting. Is it ok to use colored gravel? Can I cover is with Refugium Mud? I'm doing it this way because its all using stuff I have with no other expense other than the used overflow I got for $20 which can handle up to 700gph if I upgrade anything. Questions? Opinions? Advice? :-/

 

as far as sand goes you're gonna want the sugar sized sand or some kind of live sand...

gravel is a bad idea for a fuge...

for nitrate reduction you need very fine substrate.... so you can get anoxic at the deeper depths... otherwise you're just wasting time and if anything making a detritus trap (that's why gravel is a bad choice for a reef tank, does nothing but trap detritus)

the coarser your substrate the deeper you need to go to get the benefits of a DSB...

3-4" for sugar sized, probably only 2-3" for mud...

5-6" for slightly coarser sand like the natural looking LS...

i used the slightly coarser live sand in retrospect i should have just thrown sugar sized aragonite oolitic sand down there... more effective at nitrate reduction...

and as far as a light goes it needs to at least be some type of fluorescent... you can get just a screw in fluorescent like those energy saver bulbs, get the daylight spectrum if you can... a 26w (100w equivalent) should do just fine, i have it over my fuge and i went from a ball the size of my fist to enough to fill my entire 10g fuge in about 2 weeks with a 26w (100w incandescent equivalent) CFL energy saver GE bulb which cost me maybe 3 bucks screwed into one of those clip-on shop lights...

the mud is prolly best but i think only in really small fuges is it necessary, and it's so messy it's a PITA from what i've heard.

so just get some regular aragonite from your LFS some caribsea or whatever they got, get a good deep sand bad, i'd say 4-6", and make sure you've got a little flow in there too...

i used an Eheim classic for my return for a while... it's not the best choice... those can filters are designed to run below the tanks they are filtering so the head pressure is offset by the return pressure..

 

Thanks for all the info. So can I put the DSB over the undergravel filter being fed from the overflow as you can see it connected on the left or should I forget the undergravel idea all together and just put a baffle on the intake side and a dsb on the other with my chaeto and intake for the fluval. I also have a penguin powerhead which I can use on the other side of the undergravl filter with a straight clear pipe to send water back to the tank.

 

Can I turn this into a remote jaubert plenum system of some sort?

 

The Jaubert plenum methods sounds great in theory as it provides yet another environment for anaerobic to colonize but there has been debate over dead spots in the dsb and creating health risks for fish. I just dont think its necissary personally. With a properly funcitoning remote fuge with a dsb, mineral rich mud preferably and macro algaes with balanced lighting (both white and blue spectrums), your nitrates and phosphates would have to take massive and routine overfeedings to cause major problems. If by using a "Jaubert plenum method" means simply having a space between very bottom of dsb and tank floor, i dont see a problem with that either. I just personally feel that sand in particular should always be aerated a few times a year. I dont subscribe to the dont ever touch the sand bed mentality unless its mud. Such thinking has not led me astray so far.

I like the idea of using the fluval btw. Ensures a solids-free water entry and it will stay nice and clean in there. Although if you have a fuge with mine with armys of populating Stomatella, some snails and other creatures, detritus will collect through wastes. I even have fish in my fuge and thier added wastes have done nothing to my water quality. I use critters like Silver Dollars and Narssarius Snails to rove the sand and breakdown the detritus. Its just a series of life in balanced fuge that breaks down contaminants more and more. I could go on and on about it but ill just leave it at that.

These are just my opinions based on own experience. There are many ways to do it though, that all work to various degrees of success. MY basic feeling is use life to sustain life and have every addition to your tank have a purpose. Everything has a job to do and a good protien skimmer eases the workload.

Anyway youll get plenty of efficeincy running it into your sump. You wont get the overflow benefits but what you will get is plenty. Conditions in your system will improve dramitically whether u use plenum system or not. Did I mention to try to use some good mud? I mixed Fiji and Carib Sea in mine.

 

Allrite, so im gonna do this. I'm gonna take out the undergravel plate and just put a DSB. In this 10 gal fuge, how should I layer the sand and mud and how deep should each be?? As for the intake from the over flow, should I jus let come into the tank and disperse it around with the use of a small powerhead.

About how many pounds of sand should I get for a 10 and would that 1 pound container of carib sea mud be enough to put on top of the sand and how often or do I have to change the mud?

 

Im sure many will tell you that 3-4 inches of sand is fine, which it is, but the mud is actually designed to provide efficient nitrate reduction at 2 inches. So one container of carib sea mud would almost do it although Id prolly go for a second or a portion of another type just to promote biodiversity and a wider range of slow release minerals. Id definetly seed it with a bottle of Live Tiggerpods and/or Ocean Pods. Get yourself a clump of really good Cheato, if youre lucky enough to get a clump with some mini brittles youre in like flynn. Those things multiply like crazy and are fantastic decomposers.

As far as when to change it.. thats one id actually like to get some input on. Im at over a year and things are still fine. I know you have to replace DSBs once every few years, espcially if you dont aerate them periodically.

The layering of sand/mud im unsure with too. I mixed my two together but it states plainly on the products themselves what would be better to place on top. I think both have thier own benefits on the surface but for nitrate reduction alone, one is probably better than the other when placed on bottom layer. Like I said tho I remember reading a recommendation on that right on the mud container or in its directions.

 

BTW bud, in my tank I purposely try to not dump the overflowing fuge water on a powerhead to disperse. The main benefit of overflowing the fuge into the DT tank is pods n stuff can populate and grow in the fuge and pass into the DT without getting battered in a pump. Ive heaard a few times that some pods can make it into the DT from sump fuges but they are small. Amphipods for example are too big and would most likely get jacked up pretty good. Plankton for example does fine in pumps, too small to make a big dif.

 

I don't think any Pods would be making it to the DT as long as the return is the fluval so they would be fine as long as they didnt get sucked in there. How do I get the water to circulate and not jus land in the spot that the overflow tube ends. I'm not too concerned about keeping pods really and I got some good chaeto ready to go thats in a DIY HOB filter converted into a fuge which is not doing anything at all for its growth/nitrate reduction.

 

I'm also gonna throw my heater and phosphate reactor pump and return in there but hang it outside. My skimmer unfortunately wont fit under the cabinet :/