planning for first fuge

I swear that I read somewhere that plexiglas is not to be used for these sorts of things. Perhaps it is one of these things where the transitive property does not hold.....that all plexiglas is acrylic but not all acrylic is plexiglas. I will have to look it up again.

 

From what I could find (Googling), and from my local glass shop, Plexiglas used to be like that (or maybe it was a cheaper version of sheet plastic that got inappropriately name plexiglas (years ago)). I do remember reading something (somewhere) like that after googling "plexiglass". That's why I posted that wiki link; it agrees with what my local glass shop told me (as well as ePlastics.com and usplastic.com). Here's a link that might be of interest:

Brief History of Plastics - specifically Plexiglas acrylic sheet

 

So... any progress yet? Please keep us posted on how things go.
Who else out there has experience with DIYing an acrylic sump or fuge? By the time you factor in materials cost and the expense of purchasing the required saw blades and drill bits did you save enough to be worth the effort compared to ordering a custom built piece?

 

thanks for checking in. i've been away on vaca - much needed. tank is ok after it all!
i think i'm going to go with a glass tank and have a local glass shop cut baffles to silicon in. i also am going to try a diy pvc overflow for the 'fuge. any suggestions?

d

 

Well when you get his fuge up and running it is going to look like crap. It's like a swamp and not a display tank. Don't know if your getting the wrong idea on what a refugium really is.

Good rule of thumb. 1/10 the size of the display tank (75g = 7.5 or 10g fuge)
1/10 the flow rate (75g = 7.5 gph across the fuge)

I have a 30g with a drilled hole in the side of one end so it just dumps water back in my sump when I add water to it on the other end.

 

I thought I'd seen mention of people keeping gobies or even seahorses in their refugiums, also little mangrove forests (though I don't think there are ever all 3 at once). Is a 'display' like this totally unrealistic or inefficient? I'd love to hear Scott's thoughts on this and to hear from anyone who has had success with a more display caliber fuge.

 

Once you run a real refugium you will understand, they smell awful and look like crap. Mine is so thick that there is little if any light that gets to the bottom. This is the last thing I would want to show as a display. You could grow little pieces of algae and have fish in there if you like, to me it just defeats the purpose.

 

To update, I finally got the 'fuge up and running this weekend. Used a 20 gal long tank, drilled one end for a drain to return to the sump. I didn't use baffles, as after thinking about it for awhile I couldn't figure out any benefit - the water flow is slow enough that there's not a lot of turbulence in the tank. I put 2 lbs of live sand and 2 lbs of rock rubble into the bottom with some dead sand. Going to put in some algae today after work. Hopefully this helps my DT algae problem!

 

I'm gonna try and grow sea lettuce in mine as tang food but I may just toss it in the DT depending on the growth speed of the stuff

 

some 7 month follow-up. fuge went in in august. i used a 20 long glass tank, drilled a bulkhead hole and made a pvc overflow. filled tank with 3" sand, seeding it with 4 lbs of live sand and 4 lbs of live rock rubble. threw in some chaeto. at first, i used a cheapo LO fluorescent light that had come with an old 10 gal tank. in january, i updated to a 30" current usa PC light.

the chaeto grows, and i throw some out every now and then. however, this tank has remained essentially pristine! I think my DT is really my fuge and my fuge should be my DT. flow/turnover in the fuge is only about 3 gal/hour, without any turbulence in the flow, so sediment settles if stirred up. i've been waiting for the sandbed to build up detritus or something so i can justify throwing in some cuc orgs, but sofar it's as clean as it was in august! i do have alot of 'pod though - they run all around the fuge at night...
will post a pic sometime soon.