Yet another sump thread! Yea!

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cloudy? that's just incredible to me. i've had very deep refugiums with no problems at all. i never had a cloudy refugium. maybe the guy was using reef mud or something, and that was making it cloudy. what would make it cloudy otherwise?
Mr x,I think he may be talking about this sump,I personally would reccommend keeping flow very good through any macro's which is why i suggest flow going through macro section to enter low level and exit high level,the cloud i still dont know what it was,
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i've never seen anything like that before and have built and ran enough sumps to say that that situation pictured is something special. slow or fast, and under or over, macros will grow fine, providing you don't have some sort of chemical issue like i did in the gym tank. i built all of my sumps similar to pictured above and used small return pumps compared to others (mag 7's and quiet one 4000s on 200 gallon + systems) and had to give away macro algae on a regular basis....for years.
 
First, Carey, thanks for your comment!

Mr X, you have been a great help and I REALLY appreciate it (if I could give you more rep I would but I can only give so much). I have decided to leave it as is for now. I did forget that I have an inline UV thingy and I will also use that to move the water from the fuge to the return. It moves water at around 150-200 gph which is about the flow into I was going to do.

Mr X, I leave you the right to say "I told you so!" if it doesn't work out! I'm always willing to admit mistakes but I do like this design and have seen a lot of sumps with similar designs.

Thank you SO MUCH for your help!
 
Im sorry if i don't grasp the refugium tank idea, but what exactly is it supposed to do?? Does it just give your tank more hidden water, therefore more stability?? Again im sorry and I understand the skimmer and sand parts but someone please explain the concept of refugium tanks
 
The purpose of the fuge is to have a place for algae to grow. The algae eats up extra nutrient in the water to keep algae from growing in the DT. A deep sand bed is supposed to be a place to help eat up the nitrates.

Yes, the idea is to make the tank more stable.
 
actually, i believe the true use of a refugium is that it's a place, free of predation, for organisms to grow and flourish. break the word apart and you'll see "refuge".
the idea is that as pods and micro creatures get eaten in the display, the healthy population of creatures in the refugium will make their way to the return pump and thus replenish the main tank.
someone had the idea of adding algae to the refugium because many creatures find the clumps of plants ideal for breeding in. it was after this point that folks realized the macro algae was competing and using nutrients that otherwise would be available for any unwanted algae in the main tank, and it seems like this has become a more important benefit to many.
 
Everything you said makes since to me! I was only aware of the part about the algae but I was planning on putting in pods to the live rock and fuge area to help them grow.

Interesting on how I was planning to do this without knowing that is what people did first! It just makes since to put them in a place where they can't get eaten. This is also why they go in after the skimmer, so it doesn't capture the small pods.

The fuge can also be a place for craps and other things you don't want in your main display.
 
lol..yeah...it's not supposed to have any predators in it, but i don't kill anything either- every hitch hiker i find goes in there, except for aptasia and majano anemones, because they are impossible to relocate without spreading them, so they must be nuked.
 
ahhh ok..thank you for the explaination..soo in theory, if I had a 55g dt with a 20 g fuge...it should have the chemical stability of a 75 gallon tank?? only other question is how does one get the water out of the dt and back in? predrilled holes? or another method
 
There are really 2 ways to get from the DT to the fuge. One is a drilled tank and the other is with a HOB overflow. People can drill holes in an existing tank but you do risk ruining the tank if you make a mistake. Most with tanks that aren't pre-drilled do go for a HOB overflow.
 
Hmmm ok:) i do however have some acrylic laying around.... perhaps yet another diy project is coming up lol
 
Just in case someone is reading this thread on how to build a sump let me give you a BIG piece of advice. If you get glass baffles, MAKE SURE you get glass that is at least 1/4" thick. I've had 3 pieces crack on me and it has been a royal pain. I started with 1/8" and it just isn't thick enough, they break very easily.
 
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