Building a separate refugium tank

[sbash]

My GHA seems to be out competing my 12" x 18" fuge in my 55 gallon (4' model) sump on my 220 gallon display. I also just bought a light that could easily support a 3' long refugium and I just happen to have a tank that will meet my requirements. Originally, I thought the higher par would help with my macro growth; but even at its lowest setting it is too bright and I can't raise it without building an awkward bracket for it.

I just happen to have a nice tall 19" H x 12 " W x 36" L reef tank set up as an experiment to test out the AquaticLife Edge light that I had kicking around. My plan is to take that tank down and swap it with another 36" x 12" that I have in my fishroom (as a QT); once the fish in it are through their QT period in a about a week.

I'll have to drill the tank, I will do two 1" bulkheads just for redundant overflows which will flow directly into the main sump. Since the tank is shorter than my 55G sump, I will need to build a 6-8" riser on the sump shelf (which is just under 8' long).

The overflow from my 220 gallon is bean animal style, so I can just extend the durso pipe (it has a union valve right before it angles into the sump). This part is going to determine the height of my riser, as there is not a lot of room there. Absolute worst case, I can cut the vertical and shorten the run up to the main level.

For substrate, I have some aragonite in a bucked I can use and I have a couple hundred pounds of rubble if I want to add some rocks (as opposed to actually putting proper sized rocks in the tank).

On the macro side, I have several different varieties growing in some other tanks. It should just be a matter of filling it up and throwing in some clumps.

The tank will be filled up with freshly made salt water and dipped macros (freshwater dip). My other tanks seem to be pest free, but I don't want to cross contaminate them if I can avoid it; so if there is any other precautions I can take, I would love to hear them!

The refugium will run on its own for a short while (a week or so with just a power head in there) before I tie it into the main system. That will allow me to acclimate the plants to the light properly and make sure they are starting to grow.

I would love to hear any other thoughts on design, functionality and other tips and tricks I could use!

 

[VR28man]

Very nice. Some day I may do this.

One thing you could do is turn it into an macroalgae or seagrass display biotope. Do some looking around (John Tullock's books, especially "Saltwater Aquarium Models" which was recently transfered to Kindle can give ideas), but the idea is that instead of just a mass of chaeto and caulerpa it's dominated by one or both of these forms of life, and has other appropriate organisms.

A simple seagrass display fuge would be just pieces of LR (shallow sandbed if you want) and then all kinds of different macroalgae. Caulerpa, halimeda, etc. Live-plants.com has a number; you can go to his reference book to learn about the different species he sells. You could add some other small fish or anemones - Rock Flower anemones, condactlus anemones, even maybe an LTA+ocellaris or other anemones that like deep sandbeds (in the wild these live among sea grass beaches, IIRC).

Seagrasses are harder to keep I'm told; you'll definitely need a DSB. Maybe a DSB, 1/3 seagrass, 1/3 macroalgae, 1/3 aneomone?

Uh-oh, I think I'm overstocking your tank.........

 

[sbash]

Very nice. Some day I may do this.

One thing you could do is turn it into an macroalgae or seagrass display biotope. Do some looking around (John Tullock's books, especially "Saltwater Aquarium Models" which was recently transfered to Kindle can give ideas), but the idea is that instead of just a mass of chaeto and caulerpa it's dominated by one or both of these forms of life, and has other appropriate organisms.

A simple seagrass display fuge would be just pieces of LR (shallow sandbed if you want) and then all kinds of different macroalgae. Caulerpa, halimeda, etc. Live-plants.com has a number; you can go to his reference book to learn about the different species he sells. You could add some other small fish or anemones - Rock Flower anemones, condactlus anemones, even maybe an LTA+ocellaris or other anemones that like deep sandbeds (in the wild these live among sea grass beaches, IIRC).

Seagrasses are harder to keep I'm told; you'll definitely need a DSB. Maybe a DSB, 1/3 seagrass, 1/3 macroalgae, 1/3 aneomone?

Uh-oh, I think I'm overstocking your tank.........

Oh, yes good point, I do want this to be a display fuge. I have a couple fish that I need to get out of my QT system, but can't put them in any other tank (I also can't sell them).

Although I can get seagrasses once or twice a year, they are hard for me to keep. Since they come straight out of the ocean, they rarely survive the QT protocol; so it's not really worth the expense. I appreciate the suggestion though!

As for macros, I have chaeto (maybe), caulerpa (short, long and fern), three different grapes, gracilaria (red ogo and pom pom, I think they are both gracilaria), a shaving brush - super neat, codium, some udotea or halimeda (not sure which)...

A few nems is a great idea! I was hoping to put a couple sabea clowns in the tank, perhaps they will take one as a host!

 

[VR28man]

As for macros, I have chaeto (maybe), caulerpa (short, long and fern), three different grapes, gracilaria (red ogo and pom pom, I think they are both gracilaria), a shaving brush - super neat, codium, some udotea or halimeda (not sure which)...

A few nems is a great idea! I was hoping to put a couple sabea clowns in the tank, perhaps they will take one as a host!

Well there you go. That's a great list right there. Some of those could just go on live rock and a shallow sandbed. Others will need a DSB.

Sebae clowns host naturally on Stichodactyla haddoni, which often live in seagrass beds, in the sand or in rock crevices in sea grass or algae beds. So that's a win-win. (Though it may get too big for your tank!!!)

 

[sbash]

Stichodactyla haddoni is a carpet nem? If so, I do have one in one of my frag tanks (which is not selling) and is also only about 3" across... Interesting...

 

[lion king]

Sounds good, for me it's been I've never had great results with a refugium section in my sump. I believe it has to do with too much flow, so consider the flow in your design. Both my tanks that struggled when keeping flow through designed refugiums, now are completely in check that I slowed the flow through my macros. I use reactors now with flow under 300gph.

 

[sbash]

Sounds good, for me it's been I've never had great results with a refugium section in my sump. I believe it has to do with too much flow, so consider the flow in your design. Both my tanks that struggled when keeping flow through designed refugiums, now are completely in check that I slowed the flow through my macros. I use reactors now with flow under 300gph.

Yeah, kind of what I am thinking, the non-siphon durso should have about 1/4 of the return pump flow (that is just a huge guess), so it should put it around 300-400 gph. While right now, the sump's flow is about 1200 gph throughput.

 

[Chef Tommy]

I have a little 7.5 display draining into a sump for my 75.

Excited to see more people doing this, it really adds another nice area to enjoy for our inhabitants.

 

[VR28man]

Stichodactyla haddoni is a carpet nem? If so, I do have one in one of my frag tanks (which is not selling) and is also only about 3" across... Interesting...

Definitely. If you want to house your sebae clowns I'd totally put it in (at the risk of potentially overrunning your display fuge).

Imagine this at the end of a seagrass meadow or macroalgae bed: (honestly, you can have both if you wanted: you could use the right plastic aquarium plants to mimic seagrass, as well as real macroalgae).

 

[sbash]

Okay, the fun starts tomorrow!

Here is the tank I'm going to use:

I will swap this tank out with a tank I have that shares the same footprint, but is a few inches shorter. So this weak light will work better with the shallower tank. It also gives me the opportunity to add in some framing to prop up against the wall with some space for the HOB filter and HOB skimmer. The hanging on the side thing lacks the look I will want.

And here we go, the fish, corals, rocks and snails in a bin for a couple days.

Empty, needs a bit of cleaning... Should be easy to clean out when I do the drilling. I have a hot/cold hose connection out of my garage, works great for cleaning tanks and should work well for drilling too.

Here's where the new fuge is going to live. Currently it is basically an acclimation station, dosing station and a place to grow brine babies... All of which will be awkward once the riser is in place, so it will likely just be storage.

The line I will use is in the top left corner of the photo. That union valve will be swapped with a union and moved over to the tank accordingly. However, as I feared, there is not enough flex in the line to use it as is. I will need to shorten the vertical from the DT. Fortunately, I set it up with a bean animal configuration, so I can easily shut this overflow line off while I work on it. It will be super awkward to cut the pipes, but you have to do what you have to do, right?

 

[VR28man]

HADDONI
HADDONI
HADDONI



Seriously, however you configure it, looking forward to seeing it set up.

 

[Devaji]

I love display fuges! and macros tanks for that matter I think they are way overlooked in the hobby. I just took down my 2oL macro tank a few days ago.

 

[Devaji]

Here is a pic of my macro tank it was not plumbed in to my main tank but hey who doesn't like looking at Fts...

 

[sbash]

HADDONI
HADDONI
HADDONI



Seriously, however you configure it, looking forward to seeing it set up.

Haha, turns out my carpet is a mini maxi (tapetum). I'll still put a couple sebaes in this tank, I'll just get a carpet later. Worse case I swap it out when it gets too big...

 

[Devaji]

I was going to do the same on a 75 build I did a few years ago it was going to be a 40br display fuge but I had to move so that never happened. I think you will really enjoy it. if not you can always do a nice waterfall ATS that will take care of you algae..

 

[Retro Reefer]

I have a little 7.5 display draining into a sump for my 75.

Excited to see more people doing this, it really adds another nice area to enjoy for our inhabitants.

Love it! Doing something similar on my current build, fuge is nice but I’m mainly looking for a place to put hitch hikers and other critters I don’t want in my display.

 

[Devaji]

@Retro Reefer + its supper cool to have a planted marine tank aka macro algae tank differently a different challenge.
I might do another one if I have room and can convince the GF we need yet another tank...haha

 

[sbash]

Alright, great progress today. After emptying the tank from the old set up, I very carefully hauled it outside. Wow, aside from awkward to carry, it sure smelled bad after sitting overnight... So, here we are, reading to be drilled and washed out. The driveway is on a slope, but don't worry, it was stable; it only almost fell over a couple times.

Hole templates are always fun to build. My diamond bit is metric and my wood bit is imperial; so I had to break out the Dremel to make the whole another .5mm bigger. Anyway, clamped on tightly, it can't shift at all or you're going to have a bad time. I've never held the hose in place like that before, and I admit I was a little reluctant to put a bar clamp on the tank, but it all worked - quite well...

I have to say, this is one of my cleanest drills yet. There's something about a nice smooth finish, I almost wanted to keep drilling...

Bulkheads are in, the riser is build and it is in place. It always feels good to get to this point when setting up a tank.

Filled up, with substrate. I'll add the rock tomorrow. I'm going to do a layer of rubble on the back, then a couple large chunks of cycled rock. I'll also probably fill in the gaps with rubble as well. I added a second madarin to my DT (220 gallon), so now I have a male and female, so I want to increase pod production. This tank will definitely help with that. I will also top up the old refugium chamber with rubble.

From here, I'll add the rock and hang the light (you can see it on the right). It is a 300w LED fixture designed for hydroponics. The spectrum of the led layout looks like it will do a great job growing plants.

I need two plumbing pieces, the union and the coupler for the 1.5" DT overflow line. Once I know this tank is stable and the plants are growing, I'll fix the plumbing up and we'll be good to go. I have the parts for the overflow into the primary sump, on the inside, I'll either leave it as is, or add and elbow to raise and lower the water level. On the outside, the bulkhead came with a 1" barb (90 degree) to connect to flex tubing, which I will just drop straight down into the primary sump - super easy...

 

[Devaji]

@sbash nice job on drilling the tank, those are clean holes for sure...the things we say in this hobby.... did you go from inside out or outside in?

 

[sbash]

@sbash nice job on drilling the tank, those are clean holes for sure...the things we say in this hobby.... did you go from inside out or outside in?

Outside in. Always.

One of my first attempts at drilling (it was a 20 gallon to boot), I did inside out. It turned out poorly and was super awkward; granted I didn't really know what I was doing AND the glass is super thin on a 20 gallon. So yeah, anyway, outside in is the easiest way to go - just make sure you put a towel down to catch the hole when it falls.

lol, yup, the things we say in this hobby...

I drill using two principals: Patience and a slow finish. My preferred drill (for this task), which I used on 95% of the first hole, I can just zip tie on full throttle, hold it upright with my hand resting on the back for weight (it's a cheap and light drill) and I just need to stand there until the water starts running through. Once the other side of the glass is breached, I remove the zip tie and manually control the drill; applying weight slowly to expand the breach into a full circle. I also find it takes much longer than the youtube videos claim (2-5 minutes, while mine take 15 minutes); perhaps I have less 'break-out'. Which is in this case was almost none, just a tiny bit on the second hole (1mm) and about 5-8mm on the second, each less than 1mm diameter.

Granted, my skill has improved, inside out would require a more complex apparatus and ultimately be more awkward to do. However, given the likely hood of the hole having 'break-out', I can see the advantage to going inside out.