Crystal Reef Aquatics Sump Upgrade

[JR55]

About a year ago I converted my stock Red Sea Reefer 250 ATO container to a refugium. It was a bit noisy at times and required frequent flow adjustments to keep it quiet. Fast forward a year and I discovered Crystal Reef Aquatics Red Sea Triton replacement sumps. They make them to be an exact swap for the Red Sea sumps. After careful measuring and planning, I decided to go with their larger 350 sump modified to fit a 250’s returns. Needless to say, the new, very well packaged sump arrived and fit perfectly. I next ordered a custom ATO container to fit in the space left in the cabinet complete with a small cage to keep the Tunze ATO pump secure in the bottom of the container as well as a hole in the back top of the container for an emergency overflow line to goes to a drain in the basement. Being that the ATO container is on the refugium side of the sump, all surfaces except the front are black to block the refugium light. Thanks to the Red Sea cabinet door hardware, the usable space left to right is about an inch short but that ½ inch on each side lets you have magnets for the Tunze ATO sensors as well as the magnet for an ATK. I have the ATK mounted inside the ATO container to feed it from the basement RODI tank. Back to the sump….my initial reaction was WOW. Adding 18 gallons to the total system volume could not have been easier. Website pictures don’t do the quality and workmanship justice. The sump is a stealth model but it could easily be called a dead silent model as there is no noise coming from the sump. Julian and Mike are the best and post purchase support has been awesome. If you are looking for a sump, Crystal Reef Aquatics is the place to go. https://crystalreefaquatics.com

 

[Anirban]

I am currently working with Mike for my new build and I must say he has a lot of patience. He is really a great one to work with and very practical about what can be achieved and what can not.

 

[JR55]

I am currently working with Mike for my new build and I must say he has a lot of patience. He is really a great one to work with and very practical about what can be achieved and what can not.

One thing I did not think about was the water height in the refugium as I have my heaters mounted in there and had to raise the level about a half inch to meet the minimum water level requirements for the heaters. A simple piece of Plexiglas provided by Mike covering a half inch of the refugium drain fixed the problem.