A refugeum question

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phantomsk8er5

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Jan 5, 2004
Messages
73
Location
minnesota
Ok I have some questions about refugiums. I have a 55 g tank and i have a 10 g tank laying around. So I decided to make that into a refugium. I cut 2 hose type things and i attached them to powerheads. I put one in each tank and i made sure that they had even flow. That didn't seem to work. I have seen other ways to make a refugiem but im broke. Does anyone have anyother ideas. (keep in mind i get $7 dollars a week allowance)

And another question is that the refugium is above my bed so i can't have the light on 24/7 to grow calpura. So is there any other plants that help your tank but doesnt take 24/7 lighting? Thanks!
 
Having 1 pump in and 1 pump out of a tank is sure disaster. While both powerheads my be the exact same make and model having two that pump the same amount is almost impossible. The best thing to do is setup an overflow drain from the main tank down into the refuge. And from there a pump to push the water back to the tank. The other alternitive would be to pump the water to a refuge above the tank and have an overflow gravity down to the tank again.

There is a link in the DIY forum about how to make a small overflow out of those lee specim contaners.

Ideally you dont want to light your refuge 24X7 anyway. I suggest a reverse lighting setup where the refuge light is on when the tank lights are off. This might not work given your desired refuge location. In that instance you could time the refuge lights with your tank lights but you would lose the PH balancing aspects of the fuge.
 
The other alternitive would be to pump the water to a refuge above the tank and have an overflow gravity down to the tank again.

i would do the same thing, but i would place ball-valves on he in and out tubes to control flow

hth

mark
 
Another option would be to just use a siphon w/o an overflow and a pump back up. And use a ball valve to match the siphon rate with the pump rate. Not the best route, but cheap. You just need to make check it every day to make sure its staying balanced. Put in a set of baffles to limit the amount of water available to the pump in the event of a power outage so you won't flood the tank when power kicks back on.
 
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