Red Sea Max E170 - replace skimmer with refugium?

[Ky_acc]

Hey everyone, I am thinking about replacing the stock skimmer in my red Sea Max A E170 AIO, and turning the back chamber into a refugium with chaeto instead.

The included skimmer (MSK 900) is fine, but it makes it hard to vaccum/maintenance the back chamber of the tank as the skimmer needs to be completely removed and drained, etc. It seems to pull out a decent amount of gunk, but not a ton.

• I just had some inspiration to perhaps get rid of the skimmer altogether and just create a refugium instead in the back chamber as my primary source of nutrient removal.
• I would simply use a piece of coarse Aquamesh to create a divider to keep the chaeto where I want it, and use a Tunze underwater grow light to power it. I already have a bunch of ceramic media in the back.
• the main benefit I see from this would be getting equipment out of the rear chamber so that I can easily gravel vac back there. also less equipment to maintenance too is a plus.
• the tank is only 45 gallons and I do about a 10-15% weekly WC. The tank is also barebottom.

Below is a picture of the rear chamber -i would simply remove the skimmer (#2 on diagram) and put an aquamesh divider (cut to size) between the media tower (i.e., right before #3) and the newly created refugium chamber to keep the chaeto in place.

Anyone done something similar or have any comments regarding the effectiveness of a skimmer vs a refugium?

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Looks like it would work fine to me. Have you set this up yet?

 

[Johny Cash]

That is a good idea, however i am not brave enough to do that, instead i bought a tunze refigium reactor and will colabarate with my skimmer to pull out excess nutrients, ill have to dial in the light of the external refigium in order to keep my nitrates at 1-3 ppm as i dont want to hit zero. I also bought for preventive measures 9w desktop uv sterilizer and goes in where #11 on the diagram along with my heater to reduce of the risk of unwanted bacteria for dino blooms, cyano blooms, or anypests that are free swimming. I have not yet set all these up but end of this week should be done. Ill take pics and share it with you guys.

Good luck not many red sea AIO reefers out there so ill try to post and share what i can.

 

[shane_denmark]

Hey everyone, I am thinking about replacing the stock skimmer in my red Sea Max A E170 AIO, and turning the back chamber into a refugium with chaeto instead.

The included skimmer (MSK 900) is fine, but it makes it hard to vaccum/maintenance the back chamber of the tank as the skimmer needs to be completely removed and drained, etc. It seems to pull out a decent amount of gunk, but not a ton.

• I just had some inspiration to perhaps get rid of the skimmer altogether and just create a refugium instead in the back chamber as my primary source of nutrient removal.
• I would simply use a piece of coarse Aquamesh to create a divider to keep the chaeto where I want it, and use a Tunze underwater grow light to power it. I already have a bunch of ceramic media in the back.
• the main benefit I see from this would be getting equipment out of the rear chamber so that I can easily gravel vac back there. also less equipment to maintenance too is a plus.
• the tank is only 45 gallons and I do about a 10-15% weekly WC. The tank is also barebottom.

Below is a picture of the rear chamber -i would simply remove the skimmer (#2 on diagram) and put an aquamesh divider (cut to size) between the media tower (i.e., right before #3) and the newly created refugium chamber to keep the chaeto in place.

Anyone done something similar or have any comments regarding the effectiveness of a skimmer vs a refugium?

Have you done it? I just purchased an e+7

That is a good idea, however i am not brave enough to do that, instead i bought a tunze refigium reactor and will colabarate with my skimmer to pull out excess nutrients, ill have to dial in the light of the external refigium in order to keep my nitrates at 1-3 ppm as i dont want to hit zero. I also bought for preventive measures 9w desktop uv sterilizer and goes in where #11 on the diagram along with my heater to reduce of the risk of unwanted bacteria for dino blooms, cyano blooms, or anypests that are free swimming. I have not yet set all these up but end of this week should be done. Ill take pics and share it with you guys.

Good luck not many red sea AIO reefers out there so ill try to post and share what i can.

Have

That is a good idea, however i am not brave enough to do that, instead i bought a tunze refigium reactor and will colabarate with my skimmer to pull out excess nutrients, ill have to dial in the light of the external refigium in order to keep my nitrates at 1-3 ppm as i dont want to hit zero. I also bought for preventive measures 9w desktop uv sterilizer and goes in where #11 on the diagram along with my heater to reduce of the risk of unwanted bacteria for dino blooms, cyano blooms, or anypests that are free swimming. I have not yet set all these up but end of this week should be done. Ill take pics and share it with you guys.

Good luck not many red sea AIO reefers out there so ill try to post and share what i can.

Have you done it?

 

[Ky_acc]

Have you done it? I just purchased an e+7

Have

Have you done it?

I ended up not doing it for a few key reasons :
1. The black film on the back glass is pretty much transparent to any sort of light - light would spill into the display from the fuge light.

2. the stock skimmer actually performs quite well once broken in. The primary goal of a refugium is nutrient export (for me at least) and getting the same nutrient export from a small fudge in the rear chamber vs. the skimmer would have been tough.

 

[LegendaryCG]

I think the extra oxygen from a skimmer pump is important. A refugium does add oxygen too, but not on the same tier.

 

[shane_denmark]

I ended up not doing it for a few key reasons :
1. The black film on the back glass is pretty much transparent to any sort of light - light would spill into the display from the fuge light.

2. the stock skimmer actually performs quite well once broken in. The primary goal of a refugium is nutrient export (for me at least) and getting the same nutrient export from a small fudge in the rear chamber vs. the skimmer would have been tough.

What about one that hangs on the back?

 

[LegendaryCG]

What about one that hangs on the back?

I have a E260 and I bought a Aquamaxx hob and found that the Red sea light brackets make it pretty unusable. It'll end up on my frag system most likely.

 

[Sharpy]

That is a good idea, however i am not brave enough to do that, instead i bought a tunze refigium reactor and will colabarate with my skimmer to pull out excess nutrients, ill have to dial in the light of the external refigium in order to keep my nitrates at 1-3 ppm as i dont want to hit zero. I also bought for preventive measures 9w desktop uv sterilizer and goes in where #11 on the diagram along with my heater to reduce of the risk of unwanted bacteria for dino blooms, cyano blooms, or anypests that are free swimming. I have not yet set all these up but end of this week should be done. Ill take pics and share it with you guys.

Good luck not many red sea AIO reefers out there so ill try to post and share what i can.

Hi, I have also bought the Tunze reactor for my E170 - could you tell me what chamber you have the pump in please? I was hoping to put it in the end chamber where the heater goes but unfortunately it’s not quite big enough to fit in.

 

[FreeReefer]

I am thinking of buying a tunze refugium reactor or combining the InTank media basket with a AUQA Gadget regium light. I would peel a section of the black felt off of the back of the tank and put chaeto in the bottom basket. My main concern is the plumbing for the reactor. How do you get the chaeto out without water spilling all over? Does anyone have photos of their set up?

 

[bluebird-hgm]

That is a good idea, however i am not brave enough to do that, instead i bought a tunze refigium reactor and will colabarate with my skimmer to pull out excess nutrients, ill have to dial in the light of the external refigium in order to keep my nitrates at 1-3 ppm as i dont want to hit zero. I also bought for preventive measures 9w desktop uv sterilizer and goes in where #11 on the diagram along with my heater to reduce of the risk of unwanted bacteria for dino blooms, cyano blooms, or anypests that are free swimming. I have not yet set all these up but end of this week should be done. Ill take pics and share it with you guys.

Good luck not many red sea AIO reefers out there so ill try to post and share what i can.

Hey Johnny - how is your set-up working? I want to set up a refugium on my max E170