Reefer 170 ATO to Refugium

[FunkEngine]

I'm going to be turning the ATO reservoir into a refugium on my reefer 170. I never used the thing since the whole mechanical top off and small reservoir never made sense to me.

I'm looking for advice on how to plumb it. I want to have the drains go into the filter sock area to catch any debris that makes its way out, which means I'll probably be drilling the bottom of it and putting stand pipes, how should I have these configured to be as quiet as possible? I can't really stick a gate valve on one for full siphon and a trickle for the other since there's no room.

 

[Mandelstam]

I'm going to be turning the ATO reservoir into a refugium on my reefer 170. I never used the thing since the whole mechanical top off and small reservoir never made sense to me.

I'm looking for advice on how to plumb it. I want to have the drains go into the filter sock area to catch any debris that makes its way out, which means I'll probably be drilling the bottom of it and putting stand pipes, how should I have these configured to be as quiet as possible? I can't really stick a gate valve on one for full siphon and a trickle for the other since there's no room.

If you can have the same water level in the fuge as in the return section you could connect the two below water with a pipe and two bulkheads. Say in the same section as the drain pipes drain into. You'd have to drill your sump though...

 

[FunkEngine]

The reservoir sits above the filter sock area, sorry I should have described the set up better.

 

[George Lopez]

Is it acrylic? If so put a bulk head at the height you want and add an elbow with a piece of pipe going into the sock. But i would think algea reactor would work better concidering the size.

 

[FunkEngine]

Is it acrylic? If so put a bulk head at the height you want and add an elbow with a piece of pipe going into the sock. But i would think algea reactor would work better concidering the size.

The reservoir is glass, which is no big deal, I'm drilling all of the ports anyway. With the tank plumbing in place the reservoir completely covers the filter sock, so I believe I have to go from the bottom and use stand pipes. I'm mainly concerned about the gurgling of said drain and how I can reduce or eliminate it.

I'm going with a refugium and chaeto for the reason of it takes little modification to the sump area and with where this sits with one of the sides very close to the stand wall it would be difficult to illuminate both sides of a turf scrubber, in addition to mounting these lights. With this I can basically just set a craptastic LED growlight from amazon on top. Plus all the fabrication for this is just drilling a few bulkheads and doing some plumbing.

 

[George Lopez]

What other equiptment do you have in the sump? Or do you plan on adding?

And your thinking turf scrubber I'm thinking a media reactor stuffed with chaeto wrapped in leds... algea reactor. They tend to be more efficient than a small fuge and can be hung anywhere