Refrigium HELP

[Brian13]

I have been reading a lot about everyones refrigiums, what they are using them for and putting in them. I recently setup my 90 gallon tank with appx. 110 Lbs of live rock and about a 2" fiji sand bed. Currently as you can see in the picture below the water flows from left to right. It come from the tank into the bio balls and filter pad. The water then runs over the edge into the pool of water below with some live rock, then into a filter pad between the next chamber and my sump, then pumped back into the tank.

 

I am not sure what else I should run in the fuge..

 

If anyone has suggestions on how to setup the fuge it would be greatly appreciated. I am setting up a protein skimmer this week as well.

 

 

[Origami]

If you're going to build a reef (and not just go FOWLR - fish only with live rock), the first piece of advice is to ditch the bioballs and the filter pads (unless you clean the pads at least 2x a week). Because they can result in excessive nitrate build up in your water column. Fish can tolerate relatively high nitrates but corals really don't thrive in it.

 

The second chamber looks like it could be used as a small fuge though I wouldn't put sand here because it appears the water flows under the baffle to the third chamber (where your return pump is). If interested, I'd put install an ATO (automatic top off) system with floats in the third chamber. I might even run the water level a little higher in the second and third chambers to cut back on the noise that you're probably getting because of that 4" waterfall. I wouldn't add so much, however, that the sump overflowed in the event of a power outage (you should check this by turning the power off to your return pump and seeing what happens - be prepared to turn the pump back on if the sump looks like it's going to overflow).

 

Where are you going to place the skimmer?

[Brian13]

My thought after doing more resarch....

 

Remove the bioballs and filterpads...close off the hole from the secong chamber to the third with plexi glass.

 

Place my protein skimmer in chamber 1 (all the way to the left)

 

Place sand/LR/algea in chamber 2. (Center area)

 

drill holes 3/4 up to flow water into chamber 3 where it will be pumped back to main tank.(Right chamber)

 

Any ideas on a good protein skimmer?

 

Which algea for the fuge?

 

Is this a better setup for running fish/LR/Corals

[zygote2k]

I'd ditch the skimmer too. You don't need one to have a successful reef. Let the algae remove the nitrate naturally. Use chaeto and dragons breath macros. Absolutely do not use calerpa sp.

[jason the filter freak]

I'd ditch the skimmer too. You don't need one to have a successful reef. Let the algae remove the nitrate naturally. Use chaeto and dragons breath macros. Absolutely do not use calerpa sp.

 

This is true but it's more for the advanced aquarist I would keep the skimmer. If you find your fuge becomes so efficient that your skimmer stops producing skim mate then ditch the skimmer... though it's pretty unlikely.

[Brian13]

SO you guys think changing my setup the way I described above will work good? I think I will buy a piece of Plexiglas and slide it between chamber 2 and 3, silicone seal it and have the water flow over it so I can place sand and rock with the algae in chamber 2. Should anything but the skimmer go into chamber one. I think it will flow nice by first hitting the skimmer, then into the fuge, then over to be pumped back into the tank. Tell me your thoughts......

 

Thanks

[Origami]

SO you guys think changing my setup the way I described above will work good? I think I will buy a piece of Plexiglas and slide it between chamber 2 and 3, silicone seal it and have the water flow over it so I can place sand and rock with the algae in chamber 2. Should anything but the skimmer go into chamber one. I think it will flow nice by first hitting the skimmer, then into the fuge, then over to be pumped back into the tank. Tell me your thoughts......

 

Thanks

 

Brian, I'm going to take this out of our PM'ing and bring it back to the thread....

 

 

This is an improved plan that you've presented but still requires a little more thought. How big is chamber 1? This may determine what your skimmer options are. It may be too small to fit an in-sump model. You may be compelled to use a hang-on model or an external model. How much room do you have for an external skimmer. Is this an in-cabinet installation underneath your display tank? Also, what kind of load do you anticipate putting in this system? Are you initially, for example, attracted by the colorful and wide variety of fish, and so you may be looking at them as your primary focus? Or are you just going to go with very few fish and focus on the invertebrate lifeforms such as corals? This may help to give us an indication of what your bio-load is going to look like and, really, is the first question that needs answering.

 

Back to the sump design. If this is a relatively simple display tank - sump tank system, then there are two things that I would begin to think about first. Both benefit from an ability to visualize what happens to the water levels in each during certain anomalous and troublesome events. Both can result in water overflowing onto the floor and possibly equipment if you don't consider it in advance.

 

The first event is a power outage or return pump failure. This is easy enough to simulate, of course. Just pull the plug on your system and watch. In the event of a return pump failure, the water in the return line begins to flow back down into your sump. If the return nozzle in the display is below the water level of your display, unless you've got a siphon break or a backflow prevention device (which eventually fail and, therefore, are not recommended) in line, you're going to siphon water from the display back down to the sump until the return nozzle is above the water line. Unless you have the capacity to store that water in your sump, it's going to overflow.

 

The second event is a failure of the overflow from the display to the sump. This can happen in hang-over-top (HOT) overflow boxes more easily than with drilled tanks. The result is that water stops flowing down to the sump. However, your return pump will still be going and will continue to pump all the water it has available in the sump until it runs dry. In your current sump's design, with the underflow between chambers 2 and 3, the water in chambers 2 & 3 would drop as low as it can possibly go, which in this case would be to the return pump's intake, before running dry. The drop in the water volume in these chambers would then be dumped into your display that's now operating without a return. If your display doesn't have the capacity to hold this water, you're going to have an overflow out of the display. You can calculate gallons of water pretty simply if you know that a gallon is 231 cubic inches.

 

Another third, operational, consideration is evaporation. Right now, you can run this sump at whatever water level you want in chambers 2 and 3. You can run it really high (leaving little residual capacity to absorb water from the display in the event of a power outage or return pump failure), or you can run it low, leaving less room for evaporation before the water level falls below the return pump intake. That's because, as it's designed right now, evaporation for the entire system shows up as a decrease in the water level in these chambers (assuming this sump is stationed at the lowest point in your system, which I think is probably the case for you).

 

Taking that into consideration, if you block off the bottom, depending upon where you locate and how you arrange the holes you would be drilling in that last baffle, you could be setting yourself up for having all or most of the system evaporation showing up in chamber 3, which could result in dry-running the return pump. The height at which you drill these holes will determine how much evaporation you can tolerate before having to top off and how much water volume is pumped back up to the display in the event of an overflow failure.

 

Take a few minutes and think this through. If you're having trouble with it, go ahead and simulate both failures on your system and see how things behave taking note of what happens to the water level in both the sump and the display as the consequences of the return pump failure or overflow failure progresses. It may help in visualizing the consequences of of each with a modified sump design.

 

By the way, Brian, I see that you're only a bulletin board member and have not yet joined WAMAS. I highly recommend that you join the group. There are many benefits in doing so to both the beginner and the more experience aquarist. You'll have access to sales of used equipment (a HUGE savings), frags, all kinds of stuff. It'll be, by far, the best $20 you will spend in this hobby, guaranteed.

 

Also, where are you located? You should put this in your profile so it shows up with each post. In some cases some of our WAMAS members who live nearby would be more than happy to stop by to help you out or to have you stop by to see how they do things. This is a fantastic group of helpful people here and you'll find it's a great community to be involved with. So let us know where you're at.

Edited November 14, 2008 by Origami2547