Refugium Sizing / Functionality - Is what I have sufficient?

good luck, the 33L will let you tweak the design to fit any of those skimmers and leave plenty of room for a decent size fuge that can grow with you if you ever upgrade your DT.check this site for some great design ideas

Melevsreef.com | Acrylic Sumps & Refugiums

 

i love melevsreef.com he has GREAT information there. now im kinda tempted to want to just build one from ground up out of acrylic... have all the tools just need to buy the right bits.

33L is not happening now, he decided after some further thought to rebuild what he's lost.

 

is it a bad idea to have the return pump feed both the refugium (with a ball valve to regulate it down to ~100-200GPH) and the DT (at 1000-1200GPH)? that way the waters been sock-filtered, skimmed, and headed back. so that brings another question, i was going to use a quietone 4000 for the return pump, now if its gonna feed the fuge too i might wanna pop for the 5000. hell, i could put a 4-way manifold off of the return pump and goto the fuge, phos reactor, DT, and keep the fourth for water changes?

i guess there is a million ways to do this. im gonna go nuts from all the decisions!

 

perhaps ill go with a reeflo snapper external instead.

 

hrmmm have no idea how to calculate how much head pressure there would be. i was thinking off of the pump would be a 4-way manifold with one pvc pipe going up to the top of the DT for its return, one output of the manifold reduced down to 3/4" tube to the phos reactor, one output from the manifold being a 1/2" pipe to the fuge. one output with a closed valve on it with a 3/4" tube connector for a hose used to drain water during changes.

i originally was going to go with a return pump to the DT that was between 1100GPH-1300GPH. using one pump to provide water to the DT, phos reactor, and fuge will reduce the overall electricity and physical footprint that would be wasted on the additional two pumps needed for the fuge and phos reactor but at what GPH rating? im guessing something in the 2000GPH range.

 

The fuge usually gets fed from the overflow rather than the return, pretty sure it makes it easier to keep the flow rate low.

 

ah, so then what i have designed will work fine for now then. ill just pipe the ev-180 externally drawing water from the sump, but should the return from the ev-180 go back to the sump from which it came or the return section?

 

sorry for all the questions, i just wanna get this as right as i can the first shot at it.

 

back to the sump area is fine, it will mix with the non skimmed water and work its way thru the bubble trap to the return....

 

ok, going with what i have. im going to pipe the skimmer externally, the phos unit externally (HOB of the sump), and get a iwaki external pump with a 4-way manifold for moving the water back to the DT, feed my phos, and keep two of the outputs for use later on if necessary. might be over complicating it a bit, but meh.

thanks for your help telgar