Refuge

Went to the LFS for their $1 per gallon sale and picked up a 40 breeder to build a new refuge. any ideas on how I should design it. I have some ideas but love the feed back on what people have found to work best. Basically it will have a skimmer, cheato, and the return pump in it. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
TonyT

 

A 40 breeder is quite a big tank for a fuge! I'm of the idea that the bigger the better! So heading out on the right track as far as I'm concerned.

Post some pics/drawings of your design. I have the following setup and found it to work very well:

Water drains to the fuge with a mixed deep sand and kitty clay bed and some crushed coral and live rock. I have tons of chaeto in there and 4 mangroves.
Then water flows through a bafler to the skimmer chamber where I have an eshopps PSK-200 skimmer that does a great job. After that, there's a bubble trap and a mag 9.5 as my return pump.

If I were to do it all over again, I would drill my tank instead of using an overflow box. This way I could do a herbie silent overflow. Other than that, I wouldn't change my sump design at all.

Check out the thread I made and how I modified the original plan to a more common, but with proven functionality one.

http://www.3reef.com/forums/refugium/my-30long-sump-fuge-design-83124.html

 

http://www.3reef.com/forums/i-made/diy-sump-design-please-review-96595.html

This is my thread discussing the design of my sump/fuge. I also took advantage of a $1/gal. sale and got a 40 gal. breeder.