External Fuge for AIO Reef

[ileas12:]

Hi all,

I have a 2 gallon ato tank from a red sea reefer 250 and due to it being thin and long, I want to use it as an external fuge for my IM 20. I am thinking of mounting it above the tank but want to know what I should as far as pumping water in and return it to the tank. Any advice is appreciated!

 

[Ron Reefman]

Kind of defeats the whole idea of an aio tank doesn't it?

So, will the fuge be drilled?

Anyway. You'll need to split your return pump line so you have one for the tank return and the other for the fuge. Wait... were you thinking of running all the return to the fuge?

Then the return to the tank can be gravity fed. I'd consider a small gate valve on the line into the fuge (this will work better if you did split the line). The other control you might have is a pump with variable speeds.

In your fuge, I'd do an emergency drain. Have a pipe that goes up close to the top of the fuge and have the bottom end drain into the tank. If the primary drain gets clogged, the emergency drain picks up the slack.

 

[ileas12:]

Kind of defeats the whole idea of an aio tank doesn't it?

So, will the fuge be drilled?

Anyway. You'll need to split your return pump line so you have one for the tank return and the other for the fuge. Wait... were you thinking of running all the return to the fuge?

Then the return to the tank can be gravity fed. I'd consider a small gate valve on the line into the fuge (this will work better if you did split the line). The other control you might have is a pump with variable speeds.

In your fuge, I'd do an emergency drain. Have a pipe that goes up close to the top of the fuge and have the bottom end drain into the tank. If the primary drain gets clogged, the emergency drain picks up the slack.

Im hoping to not have to drill everything, I was thinking some sort of gravity fed overflow and a small pump to bring water into the tank, the whole fuge would be above the tank and it is only 2 gallons maximum. Does that seem reasonable?

 

[Ron Reefman]

Im hoping to not have to drill everything, I was thinking some sort of gravity fed overflow and a small pump to bring water into the tank, the whole fuge would be above the tank and it is only 2 gallons maximum. Does that seem reasonable?

How will you control the flow in and out of the fuge? When something clogs the return from the fuge to the main tank, what will stop the pump for the DT from pumping more water up into the fuge until it overflows?

I think you need to treat the fuge just like a DT with a sump in terms of getting water in and out of it. Consider what happens if any part of the system clogs or if a pump fails or a full power failure.

When you say the fuge will be above the DT, are you saying that if the fuge overflowed, the water would just spill into the DT?