Preventing light bleeding from display refugium

Brittany721 · Nov 25, 2019

Hey,
So my husband and I recently purchased a Red Sea Reefer 170, and are patiently waiting for it to be delivered to the store. With the small sump in there, we've been debating what to do in the whole skimmer vs refugium debate. A guy from a local reef club suggested a display refugium which I ABSOLUTELY LOVE the idea of.
Wondering if anyone has any ideas of how to prevent the fuge light from spilling over into the main display at night and causing algae growth there??

Thanks!

S2G · Nov 25, 2019

Same way if it's under your stand. You'll have to cover or blackout areas you don't want the fuge light

Brittany721 · Nov 25, 2019

S2G said:
Same way if it's under your stand. You'll have to cover or blackout areas you don't want the fuge light

I guess we were trying to do it in the most aesthetically pleasing way.

bar|none · Nov 25, 2019

My build thread has templates posted for black acrylic panels that fit in 170 fuge and make macro growing area. Personally i would keep your macro there.

Brittany721 · Nov 25, 2019

bar|none said:
My build thread has templates posted for black acrylic panels that fit in 170 fuge and make macro growing area. Personally i would keep your macro there.

I'll take a look. Why do you think that we should keep it in the sump?

Backreefing · Nov 25, 2019

Instead of a fudge just simply put plants in the display. Just in one area or however you like there are several aquatic plants to chose from .

Backreefing · Nov 25, 2019

Here is a pic off the net . You can do what ever you want .

bar|none · Nov 25, 2019

Brittany721 said:
I'll take a look. Why do you think that we should keep it in the sump?

I guess it depends on what you are trying to achieve. Do you just want a bit more diversity and to grow some macro or do you want it to be a primary export mechanism?

If you want a refugium as the primary nutrient export, supported by a skimmer, you want a decent size volume. Triton recommends 10% of display volume for a fuge. You can achieve that in the Reefer 170 sump.

You also said you wanted to keep things "aesthetically pleasing". Anything hanging on the side or in my display doesn't achieve that for me. After a few months if your fuge is running well, it's going to have a lot going on in there, meaning it will not be the pristine area with the perfect spinning ball of chaeto. Hopefully it will be full of macros, algae, copapods, maybe some snails and even some shrimp. I personally love having a diverse fuge but I think its a matter of personal preference.

bar|none · Nov 25, 2019

@Backreefing Cool and unique way to scape a tank. Tank looks awesome.

Backreefing · Nov 25, 2019

bar|none said:
@Backreefing Cool and unique way to scape a tank. Tank looks awesome.

Not my aquarium, I grabbed the pic off google to show a point. I do have a little macro going on but not like that.
I got a free peace of some green leafy aqua plant from a online order . I still keep it and it ok . 2 weeks ago I had to cut it way back .
imo a few plants can be very cool and natural looking .

bar|none · Nov 25, 2019

Backreefing said:
imo a few plants can be very cool and natural looking .

I had a cool piece of Dragons Breath in the display and it looked awesome, but then the urchin found it and it was gone within days.

There is another way to modify your Reefer 170 sump by putting the fuge in the ATO tank. This user has done this in his build thread. The more options to consider the better.

Build Thread - Red Sea Reefer 170 Build

Alright guys! Time to start a new build thread. I recently started a 10 Gallon Innovative Marine Nuvo SPS dominated Build. I was just beginning to add corals, when I stumbled across a local refer selling a red sea reefer 170 and I had to have it. The ability of having a sump far out weighs AIO...

www.reef2reef.com

And congrats on your Reefer 170! I love mine, and there are a lot of people doing cool things with this tank.

Brittany721 · Nov 25, 2019

bar|none said:
I guess it depends on what you are trying to achieve. Do you just want a bit more diversity and to grow some macro or do you want it to be a primary export mechanism?

If you want a refugium as the primary nutrient export, supported by a skimmer, you want a decent size volume. Triton recommends 10% of display volume for a fuge. You can achieve that in the Reefer 170 sump.

You also said you wanted to keep things "aesthetically pleasing". Anything hanging on the side or in my display doesn't achieve that for me. After a few months if your fuge is running well, it's going to have a lot going on in there, meaning it will not be the pristine area with the perfect spinning ball of chaeto. Hopefully it will be full of macros, algae, copapods, maybe some snails and even some shrimp. I personally love having a diverse fuge but I think its a matter of personal preference.

I was thinking more like this picture though on a smaller scale. Hoping to be able to have a bunch of different macro algaes and also some small fish like a few gobies or a goby/shrimp pair. Also looking to get the pods going in there.
I just was thinking instead of compromising on space below, that a side display tank would achieve a lot. I just don't want to detract from the craftsmanship of the Red Sea.

Brittany721 · Nov 25, 2019

bar|none said:
I had a cool piece of Dragons Breath in the display and it looked awesome, but then the urchin found it and it was gone within days.

There is another way to modify your Reefer 170 sump by putting the fuge in the ATO tank. This user has done this in his build thread. The more options to consider the better.

Build Thread - Red Sea Reefer 170 Build

Alright guys! Time to start a new build thread. I recently started a 10 Gallon Innovative Marine Nuvo SPS dominated Build. I was just beginning to add corals, when I stumbled across a local refer selling a red sea reefer 170 and I had to have it. The ability of having a sump far out weighs AIO...

www.reef2reef.com

And congrats on your Reefer 170! I love mine, and there are a lot of people doing cool things with this tank.

We considered that, however I'm not sure what we would do about an auto top off then. We have a small baby running around, so everything needs to be kept out of sticky hand's reach.
And thanks! Can't wait to actually get it in!

Bossman · Nov 25, 2019

We had a hang on back CPR Aquafuge refugium on our RS 260 for over a year. It was very effective with the stock pump and light. For some time we kept the 260 Max using the rear AIO sump.

Later we upgraded to the in cabinet sump Then I removed the HOB and installed the CPR

in sump refugium. That works great as well.

bar|none · Nov 25, 2019

I finally got around to creating a video tour of the sump mods.

Video Tour of Mods for Max Fuge Reefer 170 Stock Sump

I finally got around to making a video tour of all the mods I made on my stock Reefer 170 fuge. Video Tour HERE I took this full tank shot today as well, so you can see what it looks like. 5 1/2 months since lights on.

www.reef2reef.com