Remote refugium build

[russell13]

Materials
Ten gallon tank with lid $29.99 Wallmart ( got mine at a garage sale then broke it and picked one up at Wallmart).

1” bulkhead and bulkhead strainer $10 online

45 mm glass cutting bit $5.99 online

Plumbing parts and plumbers putty about $10 at Home Depot

Red bulbs LED $4.99 Wallmart

Black paint and two brushes $6 Wallmart


Also going to need a pump to pump water from the Sump to the Fuge, haven’t picked it up yet. Think I’m gonna go with a maxijet.

So this was a very easy build, the tank is very long and the sump left a pretty good size open area on the right side of the stand.
The water will pump into the Fuge and then fall back into the return area of the Sump just like a smaller version of the display. I’m going to use bricks to elevate the Fuge higher then the sump. Not pretty but it’s under the tank and won’t really matter.

First I drilled the tank, it exploded on me so that was a bit of a setback. After doing some research turns out the glass was tempered. I picked up another tank from Wallmart for $14.99 and tried again. It was a success and we now had a hole for the bulkhead. Looking back I wish I would have drilled it a little higher but I was afraid of it breaking being to close to the edge.

After that I slapped some black paint on all the glass except for the front panel. This prevents some of the light bleeding into the sump area and shining through the back of the stand. I wonder if having the sides and bottom painted will increase the amount of light reflecting back??

Next step was to hook up the plumbing and give it a test drive. Used my garden hose and it worked great. Now we just have to put it under the tank and get it up and running.
I will add more pics of the finished product when it’s all setup.


Thanks for reading and if I left anything out or you have any questions feel free to comment.

Happy Reefing

 

[russell13]

Supplies

 

[russell13]

Setbacks

 

[russell13]

Victory!!!!!

 

[russell13]

Finished product
Not sure how the light is going to work. Looks more orange than red. I also have the stock tank bulbs, going to use both to see what grows better. I know I should be using a real grow light but I’m doing this on a budget. May end up doing a larger one later and then I will look into getting a better lighting source

 

[Reef-junky]

Very nice

You can pick up LED grow lights for pretty cheap.

 

[russell13]

That looks cool. I may try it

 

[TriggerFinger]

I’ve been tossing around the same idea. I have a smaller 2 chamber sump I would like to use for this. Following, looks good so far!

 

[Pedal Dangit]

Hey neighbor. (temecula)

update? I'm thinking of doing the same thing with a spare 29 Gal I have...

are you worried at all about the drain clogging up? I would probably make a separate angled panel of acrylic with slots and glue it in place in front of that drain as protection for clogs

BTW thanks for the fail pics! that must have been exciting LOL I drilled a 10 gallon as a practice tank and then managed to crack it by too much leverage on the bulk head. that glass is so thin on those things

 

[russell13]

Hey neighbor. (temecula)

update? I'm thinking of doing the same thing with a spare 29 Gal I have...

are you worried at all about the drain clogging up? I would probably make a separate angled panel of acrylic with slots and glue it in place in front of that drain as protection for clogs

BTW thanks for the fail pics! that must have been exciting LOL I drilled a 10 gallon as a practice tank and then managed to crack it by too much leverage on the bulk head. that glass is so thin on those things

I think the real trick to drilling glass is slow and easy. I haven’t had any problems with the Fuge clogging up at all. I put a T on the bulk head and have two strainers. I’m also running the flow rate pretty slow and check it every few days. So far so good, looking back I wish I had gone with a bigger tank. Maybe next time