New to salt water

[Haneybird]

I am in the process of planning my first salt water tank. I have a 55 gallon tank coming to me in the next few weeks with a stand. I was planning on placing a sump underneith it in the stand but I also want to make a refugium/farm tank in the system off to the side. I want to do this both to increase the total water of the system to 75 gallons but also so that There is a large are free from fish or maintenance equipment that beneficial algae such as Red Gracilaria and small critters such as pods have somewhere to grow. Is this feasible and if so, is it worth it or will it just be more work for no reason?

I made a rough pic of what I am talking about in case I was not clear in my description.



Hmmm... Anyone know how to get rid of one of those pictures?

 

[seaham358]

A fuge is worth the time, the only issue I see is your running all your water through the fuge first and a fuge is usually a low flow area. So you may want to run a second overflow hose into the sump. This way the water that goes into the fuge and can be controlled with a valve. The way you have it now I do not think that sump will be getting enough water to keep up with a return pump of the proper size.

 

[MyMonkey]

I second that. Need low flow in the fuge. Especially if your sights are set on pod growth. Will be a nice setup though. Good luck.

 

[BillyZ]

I agree with seaham. But I'll also add, you might want to consider putting the fuge on it's own overflow/pump. If you're using the fuge for pod production want to get the pods back into the tank with as few pumps as possible (Better survival rate)

have you already purchased any of the equip? A lot of people build their fuge right into their sump so it's one unit, one pump etc and it's just set up in a way that you can control the water flow through the fuge portion of the sump.

 

[Haneybird]

I have not bought anything yet. The tank and stand will be available to me this weekend but I have to find a way to transport them the three hours from my mother's house to where I live. The reason I do not want the refugium in the sump is because I will not be able to fit a large enough tank in the stand as it is a long back hex tank. I could fit a 20 high in the stand but would rather have seperate 10s. I will probably set up something so that there is less flow to the refugium tank.

I intend to have plenty of time to fine tune this setup before the tank is finished. I do not plan to get fish until spring at the earliest because of my job so by then hopefully the system will be well established. I probably will not even have LR or LS within the next month.

 

[BillyZ]

That perfectly fine! There's nothing wrong with taking your time to set things up. it gives you plenty of time to consider whats going to go into it, both hardware and software


one thing you could do, is have the drain from the tank go to the sump, and then place the fuge next to the sump using another overflow between the two tanks with the return pump in a baffled section of the refugium. I've attached a quick sketch to show what i'm talking about. Basically another overflow box that has two outlets, one goes to the refugium side of the baffle, the other goes to the pump side of the baffle, this way half the water coming down your main overflow goes into the fuge, the other half goes right back up to the disply.

 

[flamingonhot]

Why not just put a hang on fuge or just put the fuge inside the sump?
it pretty easy, google on it and youll find a lot of stuff.

 

[Brenden]

I would put the fug in the sump. I could not do it with mine due to size but I think it will be easier for you.

 

[flamingonhot]

Thats what I was going to do for my sw tank. But that was also going to be about 48 inches long lol.

I was going to look for this topic on seahorse.org that hasd a VERY good link but when I got there everything had been hacked and they had to delete all of the posts...due to "inapropriate" content.

 

[seaham358]

having a seperate fuge is fine, I have a 20 gal on a stand next to my 55 fowlr and it is just as much fun to look in there as the main tank. its not a safe fuge for pods its more for nitrate reduction. I have 2 fish and a pep shrimp in there with a small mantis shrimp . the main thing is to take your time with the set up.