Sump or Refugium?

[tunde1228]

I bought a 58 g with a 29 sump, that someone else had. I still need to put everything back together, but I wanted to see wether or not I should do a refugium, or a sump, or can I do both with a 29 gallon ? I have not purchased a skimmer yet, because I dont know how to set this up. I am assuming it will depend on what I choose to do. I would like to do both. Can I get some input on advantages, disadvantages, ideas, should I build this myslef, yada, yada, yada? My husband is leaning towards the refugium, but this is my tank! lol

Tunde

 

[bluebeltreefer]

hhmm, good question. sometimes with using a smaller tank, its hard to do both a refugium and sump. it can be done though. first, i think you need to decide on what equipment you are going to be using. with that decided, you will know how much room you will need. whatever space is left over, you can use as a refugium.

on another note, sometimes i see refugium setups that arent being used to its capabilities. with that said, it might be best to use the area as sump to hold all of your equipment. good luck!

 

[amore169]

This is a good read check it out;

Melevsreef.com | Acrylic Sumps & Refugiums

 

[scottyboys]

I have a 29g setup with a 12g fuge, I do not use a skimmer. Live rock and cheato, 5" deep sand bed in fuge. I love my fuge, would recomend it to anyone who has space for it.
Scott

 

[KingRicky]

I would try to do both, the thing to remeber about a fuge is to have low flow through it, imo you would need to split your overflow to the sump/fuge. I have mine set up with the main overflow dumping into the skimmer compartment and the secondary overflow to the fuge. I have a vale on both lines to control the flow. The main overflow valve is wide open and the valve on the line to the fuge is barely open.

 

[mixedreef1978]

my vote would be both

 

[scottyboys]

Did that picture help Tunde?

 

[tunde1228]

Yes it did. Thank you

 

[scottyboys]

Are you going to use a fuge?

 

[tunde1228]

yes, but I will probably split it as a fuge/sump.

 

[scottyboys]

I would suggest the same thing that KingRicky did; I set mine up with the biggest fuge I could and ran the water one way. I am reworking it when I change over to an external pump, so that I can control the flow in the fuge.