Refugium in sump

[PUFFY_SANCHEZ]

I am getting ready to set up my tank and I am building my sump. I haven't had a tank in 4 years. What I am hearing now is that refugiums are used anymore? I am trying to figure out what to do. Any insight is appreciated.

[Crob5965]

I still use one.

[treesprite]

Most folks have baffles in their sumps seperating a fuge section. I do not like doing it that way, for a variety of reasons. So I have my sump overflow to the refugium, with a small pump in the refugium and the main pump in the sump (can be done in 2 separate tanks, or a larger single tank with a drilled wall to work as an overflow, which makes it like 2 separate tanks). The best benefit of separate vessles is that you don't have to turn off the entire system just to work in the sump or just to work in the fuge. The refugium pump can be as low flow as you want, rather than have a single bigger pump with a flow rate that is not ideal for a refugium. If one pump quites for some unfortunate reason, you still have the other one to keep water circulating. Detritus from the tank to sump is a lot less likely to build up in the refugium... who likes putting their hands in the unknown under-macros region of a refugium to clean detritus?). You can do a water change from the sump, because it won't leave the fuge macros & stuff out of water since they are completely separated.

 

When building your sump, consider using longitudinal baffles instead of the typical horizontal ones. I could never stop microbubbles with the typical horizontal baffles, so I put in 2 longitudinal baffles going the entire 4ft length of the sump. The one closest to the wall is just wide enough to have the drain pipe go into it and the skimmer output go into it (over top of the baffle wall, with skimmer body in main sump area where return pump is also located). The second is 1/2 to 1" from the first (I didn't put it in perfectly straight, which was not intended but is ok). (I put the long baffles in, then put the horizontal wall from the refugium between the second baffle and the opposite tank wall... if I had done it the other way, I would not have been able to use such long baffles). Having the drain pipe in the that narrow area also cuts down on the typical noise of a rushing high-flow overflow pipe crashing into an open body of water.

Edited December 12, 2015 by treesprite