Filtration system for 540 gallon reef tank

[EriktheRed]

#Oceanic, #Reef, #Sump, #Filtration, #refugium

I just purchased a used 540 gallon Oceanic aquarium. I will be going to pick it up in mid-December and have already started building a sturdy stand for it. Obviously, it will be going in my basement, as my early 1900s farmhouse-style home does not have the structure to support such a massive tank in its 2 x 8 floor joists.

My question has to do with what type of filtration system I should build. I am planning on setting this up as a large reef system. I already have the heating (recirculating domestic hot water system) and chilling (1hp AquaLogic chiller) figured out. I also have a Korallin S-4002 Biodentrator I can hook into the system. I have an external Reeflo 2hp Power Pump ready to use on this installation.

Here is what I was thinking for the filtration. I have a 125 gallon All-Glass tank that I could fit under the 540 gallon tank that would act as a large refugium. I could then connect it to a 90 gallon Marineland aquarium that would contain filtration media, bioballs, and an internal skimmer. As far as the filtration media is concerned, I figured I could place one or more ESHOPPS trickle filters inside of the 90 gallon tank. The water from the overflows would go through the trickle filter (containing the filter padding and bioballs) and then go through the bottom into the 90 gallon tank itself. The water would pass around and through the skimmer and then go over into the refugium. I would drill holes into the bottom of the trickle filter box and elevate the box using acrylic standoffs to accomplish this.

I want this system to have a high throughput while still maintaining excellent mechanical pre-filtration of the water.

This is where I am in the though process. I have several questions:

1. How would I connect the 90 gallon filter tank with the 125 gallon refugium? Holes drilled into the sides of each aquarium with bulkheads?

2. How would I prepare the 125 gallon tank to act as a refugium? Would I black out the sides of the tank, install dividers to channel the water flow through the tank?

3. What should I place into the refugium (I have never set one up before)? A sand bed? Live rock? Plants?

4. What type of lighting should I use over the refugium?

5. Finally, I am open to other suggestions on how to install filtration media and bioballs into a naked aquarium.

Any help would be much appreciated!

~Erik

 

[theMeat]

Welcome

Guessing you have been out of the hobby for s while
125 refugium and 90 gallon sump sounds awesome.
Bio balls not so much, no wait, not at all.
The old thinking for return pump flow was 10x display rank volume. Not needed. You will have better results and less heat generated with newer thinking of 3-6x display volume per hour. On larger tanks like yours, closer to 3x.
For refugium lights think red blue works best for growing the most common macro these days, which is cheato. Running refugium light at night when display tank lights are off helps with ph swings.
You could drill fuge to sump but me thinks having top of fuge slightly elevated so it spills through bulkhead over the top of and into sump, with pump from sump to get water onto fuge works better. More controlled, less holes, safer.
There’s plenty of good info and knowledge on this site, and plenty of good vids you should watch. Would recommend BRS tv.
So many things I could and would like to share. Let’s leave it at that for now, and will let you ask away

 

[EriktheRed]

Thanks for your response. No, I have not been out of the hobby for a while. The filter system for my current 2-tank saltwater system was designed and built by the owner of my local fish store. It is a 90 gallon tank containing a modified ESHOPPS trickle filter. The ESHOPPS filter is modified to allow the filtered water to drain out of the bottom and into the 90 gallon filter tank it is sitting in. It also has been modified from one trip tray to two spray wands. The other half of the 90 gallon tank contains a large protein skimmer that is no longer in use. I will reuse this protein skimmer for the 540 gallon tank as I have an external skimmer running on my current setup. My current setup is a 210 gallon All-Glass aquarium containing fish only and a 150 gallon cube-shaped Marineland aquarium that is itself a reef setup.

If I don't use bioballs, what do you suggest for biological filtration? Will this be accomplished by whatever I put into the refugium?

And how do I accomplish sediment/mechnical prefiltration if I don't use a trickle filter with filter pads? Should I somehow add filter socks to my 90 gallon filtration tank?

What is "macro"? Is it one of the species of plant that I put into the refugium? I know that many people put sand into their refugiums, but what else should it have? Live rock? Plants? The counter-cycling of lights on the refugium makes perfect sense. You mention "red blue" lights for the refugium. Is this a brand of light, or a type of LED lighting?

I understand placing the top of the refugium slightly above the top of the filter tank so that the water gravity flows back into the sump after being treated in the refugium. How would I modify the refugium so that the water flows cleanly back into the sump? I certainly don't want the water to just spill over the top of the refugium. Do I drill a bulkhead into the top third of the side of the aquarium facing the filter tank?

Thanks again!

 

[theMeat]

Thanks for your response. No, I have not been out of the hobby for a while. The filter system for my current 2-tank saltwater system was designed and built by the owner of my local fish store. It is a 90 gallon tank containing a modified ESHOPPS trickle filter. The ESHOPPS filter is modified to allow the filtered water to drain out of the bottom and into the 90 gallon filter tank it is sitting in. It also has been modified from one trip tray to two spray wands. The other half of the 90 gallon tank contains a large protein skimmer that is no longer in use. I will reuse this protein skimmer for the 540 gallon tank as I have an external skimmer running on my current setup. My current setup is a 210 gallon All-Glass aquarium containing fish only and a 150 gallon cube-shaped Marineland aquarium that is itself a reef setup.

A trickle filter can be noisy and cause lotsa evap, and what to trickle over? Most these days do a ghost style overflow, with bean animal or herbie plumbing, which makes it to sump silently.

If I don't use bioballs, what do you suggest for biological filtration? Will this be accomplished by whatever I put into the refugium?

The live rock, sand in your tank, whatever sand, mud, rocks, algae, you have in sump and/or fuge. Many of your corals will take up nutrients as well.

And how do I accomplish sediment/mechnical prefiltration if I don't use a trickle filter with filter pads? Should I somehow add filter socks to my 90 gallon filtration tank?

You could run filter socks. I haven’t in years. Would rather let it settle in fuge, where there is enough low flow and I don’t have to worry about it at all since I have a mud/sand mix, with cheato. Or it settles in sump, where it helps to form helpful mulm. Would much rather lightly clean my sump a couple of times a year, then clean socks every few days. For water clarity I run a uv. Carbon is another option but some say it could lead to lle, it causes swings in bioload/bank, and it needs to be regularly changed.


What is "macro"? Is it one of the species of plant that I put into the refugium? I know that many people put sand into their refugiums, but what else should it have? Live rock? Plants? The counter-cycling of lights on the refugium makes perfect sense. You mention "red blue" lights for the refugium. Is this a brand of light, or a type of LED lighting?

Macro is an aquatic plant if you will. A more complex algae then let’s say green have algae. Most these days use cheato, which is short for cheatomorpha. There are a few species of caulerpra that were popular before that. In my fuge I have grape caulerpra and cheato, which brings me to your next question. Cheato clearly prefers red/blue lighting, and grape caulerpra white 6500k. Know this cause in my sump I have both lighting. Red/blue on one side, and white 6500k on the other. There’s a clear line where cheato grows under red/blue, and caulerpra under the white. Red/blue is a color/spectrum. K is short for Kevlar, which is a measure of light temp/spectrum. Cheato also prefers more flow. Would recommend you try both, to see what your tank prefers. It’s not always cut and dry. Meaning caulerpra can grow in higher flow, with red/blue lighting. Depends on a lot.
Sand is good, mud is better. Mud will give you more denitrifying in les space/depth, and slowly releases trace elements. Most cover a few inches of mad with an inch or so of sand. You could also run bare bottom or use rock rubble.

I understand placing the top of the refugium slightly above the top of the filter tank so that the water gravity flows back into the sump after being treated in the refugium. How would I modify the refugium so that the water flows cleanly back into the sump? I certainly don't want the water to just spill over the top of the refugium. Do I drill a bulkhead into the top third of the side of the aquarium facing the filter tank?

Yes, that would work. I installed a 2” bulkhead out of the end and top of my fuge. Before bulkhead water first goes through a bubble trap with panes 1 3/4 apart, where I use a coarse 2” foam pad that stops any macro from making it out of fuge and into sump. Aside from macro making it out, which is easy to remedy, any sediment has settled out into fuge, so water will come out clean, but with beneficial pods that will be safely breeding in fuge, away from fish that eat them

Thanks again!

I shared a bunch of stuff. Tap on your quoted post to see

 

[JMetaxas]

Instead of bioballs, people use Live rock and usually a sand bed. Bioballs are a Nitrate factory.

 

[EriktheRed]

I shared a bunch of stuff. Tap on your quoted post to see

Thanks again! Lots of great info to digest. A couple of residual questions come out of this:

1. You mentioned the 2" mud/ 1" sand bed on the bottom, along with live rock, cheatomorpha, and grape caulerpra. The remaining issue here is how all of these items are set up in the 125 gallon refugium I am building. Is there a place I can go with schematics of common refugium configurations?

2. I know that my refugium should have a bubble trap. Is a bubble trap a series of 2 plexiglass panes that require the water to flow over the first divider and under the second, thus forcing the water to flow through the filter media between the two panes?

3. What is a ghost overflow?

4. What is bean animal plumbing?

5. What is herbie plumbing?

6. How do you remedy macro making it out of the refugium? This question is less important than the others, but still something I wanted to ask.

Thanks again for all of your time and assistance. I will post pictures of the sump system as I build it.

 

[EriktheRed]

Instead of bioballs, people use Live rock and usually a sand bed. Bioballs are a Nitrate factory.

I did not know that bioballs can actually add to the nitrate problem, rather than solving it. I learn something new everyday! Thank you!

 

[theMeat]

1. For the water coming into fuge you could use a pump, or have an elevated smallish tank that houses skimmer, which overflows into refuge.
Having water from display fall into section with skimmer first, is my fav. This way skimmer has first chance at dirtiest water. You could do this with smallish tank and gravity, or have skimmer in sump, and in following section have pump that supplies fuge. So ideally water would go display, skimmer, fuge, return.

In refuge you put mud, cover with sand, if you want add rock or rubble, then macro

2. An example of bubble trap
A bubble trap for fuge is not needed. Just a good way to fashion a simple easy way to install foam that would serve to keep macro from flowing out. You should absolutely have a bubble trap for final sump section where return pump is housed.
You could use plexiglass to create your sections, but silicone will not work for securing plexiglass to glass. Silicone works great for glass to glass. For plexiglass to glass, if that’s what you want, I would recommend something else. Could try and dig up pics of sumps and fuges that i’v built over the years. Could take s pic of my current set up but it’s pretty crowded under there and packed with macro so don’t think you will get the idea. Sure there’s plenty of diagrams on the interwebz.

3. This is one brand of ghost style overflow.

4. & 5. Bean animal plumbing is a 3 pipe drain design. One pipe is fully submerged in overflow box creating a full siphon on that pipe, must have a valve, and handles the majority of the exiting water.
The second pipe takes a bit of water and keeps water level in overflow box steady.
The third pipe is an emergency back up/standby in case one of the other two get clogged.

Herbie style is the same, except it doesn’t have 3rd pipe emergency

Google ghost overflow, ghost overflow plumbing, bean animal, and herbie. I’m sure that would do a better job of explaining than I just did.

6. Me thinks I answered in 2.

You’re welcome. The only dumb question is the one you don’t ask. Glad to help. It’s what makes this site great