Duo Nano Set-up with Live Gulf Rock

[Anteres]

I spent the better half of today trying to figure out how to get the siphon to work correctly before saying F this ill just do two setups,, i ain't risking flooding lol. It was supposed to be a DT with a display refugium. I couldn't figure out how to get the siphon to work so I ended up with two saltwater setups instead of one. I'm taking more of an aggressive approach than I did the last time. Never again will I use dry rock and just wait for my tank to do it's thing, I have patience, but I don't have that much, and the anxiety i was getting on trying to figure out if it was dinos or diatoms was not worth it so I just ended up tearing down my 5G pico and swore from then on id only be using live rock, whether it be seeded from an LFS, local reefer, or actual live rock. Six months later I ended up moving, had a bunch of spare monies, so I decided to dip back into SW. This time I wanted to be more aggressive with my approach. I hope that by using actual live rock combined with live sand will bring me more desirable results and shorten the uglies phase. The other half of me has this weird curiosity of what exactly will end up growing on the live rock. "Pests", as long as they're not TOO catastrophic, will go in the 5.5G if I go this route. I did start running them 2 days apart. I have Live Gulf Rock on the way and did use live sand for both nanos. I also have two Coralife clip on LDS, debating on if I want to use mechanical filtration on the 10G because I'm going for a very minimal/low bio load on both. I also have a 10G waiting to get used for QT. It feels amazing actually being able to do this and I know my dad would be proud (the one who got me into the hobby in the first place)

 

[lapin]

nice

 

[TriggersAmuck]

There is one way you can combine these into a single system and thus have a display refugium, as I did just this over a decade ago. This would require using a hang on back overflow box on each (CPR makes many, and those were the ones I used) and plumbing the two tanks into one shared sump. Of course the sump has to have adequate volume to handle when power shuts off to both systems so that it doesn't overflow. (I never had a problem with this). In my case I had a 75 gallon tank for the DT and a 25 gallon display refugium having a ton of macro algae. The sump was a standard one fitting under the 75g tank. Of course each tank has its own independent pump of appropriate size for the return.

The only disadvantage in having side by side DT and RT is that you can't really have a reverse cycle lighting on the refugium without turning your DT inhabitants into sleepless zombies.

 

[Anteres]

There is one way you can combine these into a single system and thus have a display refugium, as I did just this over a decade ago. This would require using a hang on back overflow box on each (CPR makes many, and those were the ones I used) and plumbing the two tanks into one shared sump. Of course the sump has to have adequate volume to handle when power shuts off to both systems so that it doesn't overflow. (I never had a problem with this). In my case I had a 75 gallon tank for the DT and a 25 gallon display refugium having a ton of macro algae. The sump was a standard one fitting under the 75g tank. Of course each tank has its own independent pump of appropriate size for the return.

The only disadvantage in having side by side DT and RT is that you can't really have a reverse cycle lighting on the refugium without turning your DT inhabitants into sleepless zombies.

I want to check if a HOB sump/refugium would be a possibility. I'm working with a very limited space unfortunately . I have tried one light off and one light on. Both lights seem to disperse straight down rather than straight down and out because whichever tank still has the light on doesn't seem to be transmitting much light into the one that's off.