Help me set up my refugium

Lilnoelle80 · Apr 13, 2022

I’ve attempted to put in a 20g refugium under my stand plumbed into my sump by t-ing off one of the two overflows in my 210g FOWLR as pictured in the second pic. I have a 3/4 inch valve to help with flow adjustments and a sicce syncra 1.5 pump (357gph) with a 1/2in npt outlet running to the sump and a valve for flow adjustments.
Im wondering how people are adjusting in the inlet and outlet flows keep them equal as I’d prefer to neither have water on the floor nor running a pump dry. In the same vein, how do I keep my refugium outlet pump from getting clogged/flow being slowed from chaeto in the refugium?
I do have an apex and have some 1/2 inch flow sensors available for use as well as optical sensors and spill detectors, none of which are currently installed… but I guess I’m wondering what other people are doing as I feel I am likely making this too complicated, but I am concerned enough that I have considered not having it run when I am not home (rather just do a water exchange in the refugium daily or something similar).

Lilnoelle80 · Apr 14, 2022

Lilnoelle80 said:
I’ve attempted to put in a 20g refugium under my stand plumbed into my sump by t-ing off one of the two overflows in my 210g FOWLR as pictured in the second pic. I have a 3/4 inch valve to help with flow adjustments and a sicce syncra 1.5 pump (357gph) with a 1/2in npt outlet running to the sump and a valve for flow adjustments.
Im wondering how people are adjusting in the inlet and outlet flows keep them equal as I’d prefer to neither have water on the floor nor running a pump dry. In the same vein, how do I keep my refugium outlet pump from getting clogged/flow being slowed from chaeto in the refugium?
I do have an apex and have some 1/2 inch flow sensors available for use as well as optical sensors and spill detectors, none of which are currently installed… but I guess I’m wondering what other people are doing as I feel I am likely making this too complicated, but I am concerned enough that I have considered not having it run when I am not home (rather just do a water exchange in the refugium daily or something similar).

Is this better posted in a different sub forum? I did have some success getting the outlet and inlet flows mostly even, and ran it overnight without incident, but am still nervous about hiccups. I think I will be installing the flow sensors and optical sensors and got the leak detector kit running. I placed the sicce pump in a mesh breeding box and cornered that with crafting mesh to keep debris out as much as possible. I will need to secure the mesh in order to keep it in place.
I had to put my COR 20 on a constant flow rate instead of variable programmed rate as I suspect that would affect my success at keeping the two flows the same (since the sicce flow with be constant). Any other thoughts? Like I said, I’m probably over thinking this, but I’m going to be out of town this weekend and can see how having an uneven inflow and outflow would be a huge problem… and since I went through a lot of trouble to hook up the refugium, I’d like to use it.