Buy or build?

Tight budget, been round and round, many ideas and excellent ideas, but what do you all think...
Desperately want a refugium! For everything I want included in it, to buy a ready-made one woudl be big$. I have seen some you piece (like a kit, sorta) together yourself that look really nice and owudl get me close to what I want, but they still aren't exactly what I want.
I currently have a wet/dry tower in 20 high sump. Yes, I am keeping the wet/dry for now, gonna be a heavy fish load. I could possibly convert this to accomadate a refuge area of about 22" x 3.5".
try this?
buy a ready built one?
Build one myself?
I am NOT good at allw ith making things such as this, or I would go for it. Gee, this is supposed to be fuN!

 

If you build it they will come! Who? The plants and inverts of course  :
I can't glue two pieces of wood together without making a mess but I made a refugium. You will have fun, maybe make a mistake or two but it will be yours. Mine is below the main tank and it's NOT pretty, but it works and I'm glad I did it. Just don't cuss me out if you decide to make yours and things aren't perfect...  :-[
Besides all that, have you really seen a commercially made refugium set up exactly the way you want yours to be?
Have fun either which way you decide to go.
Jim

 

Ya I would go with building it yourself. It's just another tank plumbed to the same water source (your sump) really.

J

BTW I don't have a Ref but have custom built my Sump and drilled tanks for custom over flow systems

 

Words of encouragement! Now who is gonna put the band aid on my finger if I really mess up?!?!?

 

Guess, what I found a perfect "Scrap" piece of thick acrylic today, even cut to the exact size I needed for a whopping $3! I felt like I won the lottery, really! I was excited, so we'll see how it goes!

 

Have someone take pictures of you while you work
We can make a documentary out of it. Good Luck
Jim

 

Sure, I know you all could use a good laugh! That's eexactly why I picked Homer Simpson as my avatar! Ever see the spisode where he tries to make a barbeque pit Lots of real life "dohs" coming my way soon enough!

 

If you put the time and your own knowledge to build something you have more pride about your creation, so deffinetly buid.

 

Ok seriously though...I will probably just go with simple baffles. Do I want to cut slots or holes lower down on them? I have seen so many variations and the slots make sense to me.

Secondly, will the "pods and such" just begin growing after awhile, or do I need to introduce them? I have live rock that has been cured for about 3 years! Add more rock? I figure I will go with live sand and some of the miracle mud. Aslo try to get a few different cups of sand from area shops.

 

Everytime I buy or get new live rock and sand it usually comes with more hitch hikers than I really want. But most are the beneficial type.
Jim (aka Homer jr)