10g refugium newbie question

Sorry if these are stupid questions or if they've been asked before. I'm in the process of planning my first reef tank. I'd like to use a 10g as a refugium (no sump), on a 38g aquarium. Is this a good idea?

I don't want to drill holes in the tank. Should I use an overflow box to pump water in, and a pump to move water back to the main tank? Or should I use a powerhead to pump water in and a powerhead to pump water back? I know that critters will get chewed up in a pump, but will they all get chewed up?

The water level of the 10g will be about 12" below the water level in the main tank. How do you keep the water coming into the fuge equal to the water leaving the fuge? I want to keep it as simple as possible without a lot of plumbing.

Thanks for the help.

 

Start with a sump.. then a HOB overflow since you don't want to drill and then let gravity feed the fuge into the sump..

 

Okay, well I know it was a stupid question, but that didn't help at all. Thanks for trying. Nevermind though, I got some help on another site.

 

Mike, Tang didn't take it as a stupid question and he tried to answer it for you, if you didn't get what he was saying say so and he'll make it clearer. If you do a search of posts on here by sump or something along those lines you'll find a ton of threads where he and others have already helped out a ton of people getting started (myself included).

 

Tangsters answer was correct, and if you didnt want to get tank drilled, he told you to get a HOB overflow, which is what i have........He answered your question correctly!

 

How does a HOB overflow work aquaboy??? I was thinking about making one for my 5.5gal.. I have a 40 gal hob on it now.... Mostly for flow....

 

Its basically a siphon that draws water over the edge of your tank. That way the baffles are located it holds a siphon. Water spills over an edge and gets siphoned over the tanks edge.
See?

 

Lol......I got a lot more responses defending tang's response than I did for my original question.

And I never said the answer was incorrect. Just a little incomplete. I'm sure you guys get tired of answering the same old questions from everyone anyway. But like I said, it's cool, I got it figured out. In my head I had an idea that really wasn't going to work the way I thought it would. I just needed to do some research on my own. I finally just ended buying a complete set-up from someone - fuge included. So ......no worries!

 

AHH!!!! I see!!! Thank you.....