Our New Sump/Refugium Setup

This has been a work in progress for the last few weeks. After getting tired of fighting various algea outbreaks, we decided to redo the sump. Before that, I added a phosphate reactor, which definitely helped the problem some. Over the last month, we've been gradually removing the bioballs from the sump, about a quarter at a time. Last water change, I got rid of the rest of them. The algae has continued to diminish, I guess probably from both adding the phosphate reactor and removing the bioballs. Yesterday, I added almost 13 pounds of base rock to the bioball section of the sump. I bought one of those Home Depot clip-on light fixtures and took off the reflector. I don't like the light (it's way too hot), so I ordered this bulb http://www.melevsreef.com/fuge_bulb.html. We played around with the PVC pipe/water diffuser to have the water running down the rock and not splashing any. I also tried to flood the house.... not intentionally. Next, we raised the water level a bit,and also cut the power to make sure we didn't flood the house. I'm going to e-mail John Maloney about what to add and hopefully will get the new additions about the time my bulb gets here. I hope all of this works! Jwin did a really nice job of rock decorating.

 

Nice work on the revamp!

 

That was a good article on the fuge light. I like the final picture with the double fuge and 4 lights. I use bio balls w/o a problem but I am now incorporating some macro in my fuge to house some pods. I like your LR conversion in your sump.

 

Yeah the rock with the water falling on it looks like it belongs in a garden or in a frog tank or something It keeps the noise down, and now we have natural bioballs for water to fall on. The algae has definately diminished after taking out the bioballs, I guess I'm a believer now. I used to think they were fine, but no. Possibly they may work well with a filter sock, but ours had all kinds of gunk in them and stuff. We never cleaned them

 

Nice work!

 

Yeah, they do get clogged with gunk. I have seen some pretty nasty ones and I can see why some people say you have to stir them or clean them. I have to find my stupid USB chord for this camera so I can show you guys how I am set-up and how I want to set-up the one I am building.
I current run berlin bags off the main drain to catch the nasty stuff. It goes down into a clear reservoir that has a pump which pumps it up into my frag tank (now fuge with Aussie clowns) and then trickles down over appx 20 gallons of bio-balls with a 4" sand bed. The pump is between the bio-balls/ sand bed and the skimmer.
I was going to take my new stand and instead of pumping the cleaned water up to a fuge, I was going to pump it to a 20L packed with bio-balls (because I have bags of them laying around). I would have one fuge instead of two and I would only have to have one light.
Why I wish I could find the chord is I want opinions on keeping the detached fuge and making that flow controllable or making it only bio-balls in the 20L and keeping all the growth in the 55g sump.
I feel it would be cleaner looking having all the growth in one fuge and bio-balls all in one tank... as I said, they are pre-filtered for all the gunk. I have never cleaned them and they are still looking new.

 

I got the new TCP bulb yesterday: 75W, PAR38, 5100K. It's much whiter than the crappy burning-hot bulb I was using. The amazing thing was 2 hours later, it was still touchable. It's plenty warm, but won't fry your hand off. Waiting for my order from reefcleaners, then the refugium will be ready!

 

Was your original bulb one of the halogen floodlights? I use a plain clip-on lamp too, but with a 16W 6500K CF floodlamp. Even after being on for 8hours, it's cool enough to touch. Those halogen bulbs get HOT and can take layers of skin off if you touch it for more than a second.
Looks like good work though. Your light might be too far away from your fuge area for the stuff to grow fast though. Can the top lid of your trickle filter (to the left of the light) come off so you can get the light directly over that area?

 

Do you know how to cut acrylic?? That top is glued on. I had the same thoughts about the light, but I'm afraid of really messing up my sump if I start sawing the top without knowing what I'm doing!

 

Looks pretty sweet!!