Refugium Shelf

[kbsharp]

Hello Fellow Reef Buddies,

I recently bought my first tank second hand ( on a budget) and figuring out the setup.I posted a thread previously about my sump being too small for a refugium but I really really want one.

So me being persistent AF i found a possible solution, I plan to install a shelf above my sump and place an acrylic tank refugium on it , drill in bulkheads and make my drain pipe from my main tank with a Y connection pipe one leading to the skimmer chamber and second into the refugium which will then drain into the return pump chamber.

Does this sound crazy? does anyone know how I can do this, any help will be appreciated.

I found this Acrylic Tank :




These are some pics of my tank I did make a polystyrene shelf with the exact measurement of my desired shelf as a sample and some pics of the sump so you can get an idea.

 

[JoshH]

Not crazy atall, I did it myself with my Red Sea Max C130 and I Hung my shelf lol!

 

[kbsharp]

Not crazy atall, I did it myself with my Red Sea Max C130 and I Hung my shelf lol!

O great looks amazing !!! doe you have any tips on how to plumb it or anything?

 

[JoshH]

O great looks amazing !!! doe you have any tips on how to plumb it or anything?

I did it pretty much exactly as you intend to, Main 1" siphon drain from the display that I T'd off to a half inch line with a gate valve on both the main drain and the half inch line. I used one 1/2" drain from the fuge to the sump with no issues but if I were to do it again I'd probably run a Herbie drain for safety.

 

[kbsharp]

That is so motivating to hear, I want a refugium so bad haha, had to look that up great advice man thanks!!

 

[JoshH]

That is so motivating to hear, I want a refugium so bad haha, had to look that up great advice man thanks!!

Any time, as you can see in the photo there is one outlet and a surface skim drain. It ran really well for the year or two I had it up. Took a little tweeking to get things squared away, mostly on the drain side of things. But that was due to severely limited space which you have a bit more of.

Heres a pic of the back where you can see the 1/2" gate valve I used to tune the flow. This pic was taken in the plumbing phase so still didn't have it fully connected.