Need some Sump/Refugium advice...

ProfitOfDoom · Jan 28, 2018

We are still pretty new,,But we bought a used set up about a year and a half ago to get into it,Has some nice things and the price was great so we went for it. Its a 75g just has a HOB and the sump is a DIY made from a 20g tank. Well we jumped in and learned a good bit about it,,loved it! Would go to our LFS just about every week for supplies,help,corals or fish! But the store shut down and soon after that we had a hard time getting things locally,,slow on ordering online or forget,,just plain started to loose interest.

Im ashamed to say but im really shocked these fish are still living,We lost mostly All of our corals and the tank is just filthy! But we talked it over and we both want to help these fish and have a beautiful tank again,So the Rodi is running us new water for a change out tomorrow,We are going to clean it and do some aquascaping to try to bring some new life into it.

The sump is a DIY and I guess works,,but the baffles that were glued in,some are starting to move and everything is crammed in there,I think its time for a change. We went to another store yesterday and they carried a few but the one was really nice called a Bashsea it also had a nice price,,$375 I think it was.

But anyway sorry for the life story,,I think Id like to try a refugium in my sump. From what I gather they can really help with cleaning and balance the water. Just as simple as throwing some cheato in and putting a light on it?..Is there a downside to this? We only used a sock and a protein skimmer,Sometimes we ran GFO and carbon.

Also,Do any other brands have a built in fresh water reservoir in the sump..The only one I seen was a icecap brand? Not sure I need one as we just keep a 5g tank under there,,but might be nice.. Let me know what you think,Thanks!

Idoc · Jan 28, 2018

I have a 75g tank and use a 40g breeder as a sump. It's really easy to build one yourself for a fraction of the price of a purchased sump... and you'll have more room in it. My build thread has pics of how I built it with a refugium area built in.

mjlash22 · Jan 28, 2018

For your sump, definitely sounds like it's on its last leg and you should come up with a backup plan ASAP. There are a lot of really cool pre-fabricated sumps out there that would have all the chambers you would need (skimmer/refegium, etc). Check out trigger systems. Or you could make your own from a tank like mentioned above. Making your own definitely gives you a lot more options and will definitely cost less.

For nutrient export, Cheto is a great and commonly used practice. You could add some refegium mud, sand, rock rubble, bio media (like marine pure blocks), or even a different type of macro algae. You will definitely need a light of some sort for it to be successful. Most people typically run the refegium light on the oposite schedule of their main display.

The only thing you will want to watch out for is that you dont completely strip all nutrient from your system, especially if you add back in corals at some point. Testing your parameters will be key to determine that. I used to use GFO, and have since switched over to NoPox from Red Sea. My new tank will have a refegium with Cheto and I will determine if I need to does NoPox or not from there.

Lastly, if you decide to build your own sump, you can always add a separate ATO reservoir. I'm not sure how limited you are on space, but many people just use a 5 gallon bucket or food safe container. The Tunze osmolator is probably one of the more common ATO pumps/systems out there to actually get the ATO water to your sump.