Refugium Help

[barracauda]

When making a refugium, how far off of the bottom of the tank should the Plexiglas dividers be, about how high.

 

[jerl77]

What size tank u using

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[barracauda]

20 long

 

[jerl77]

How high is the tank?and I would get glass cut for the baffles

20 long

Sent from my DROIDX using Reefs

 

[barracauda]

i am new to this setup, converted from fresh water, so sorry if i sound like i dont know what im doing. I was going to split the tank into 3 sections. Intake(like bioballs) - refug - and pump

is that incorrect?

 

[premilove]

imo bioballs are a bad idea. skimmer - fuge - pump or if you have 2 drains, skimmer - pump - fuge, drain into skimmer chamber and fuge chamber

 

[kalapnath]

what about skimmer do you have one maybe you should think about building your sump around the skimmer being such an important part of a reef aquarium.....................

 

[strgazr27]

Stay away from the Bio-Balls. Bad idea. Run a spotless drain/skimmer section. Your on the right path for everything else.

 

[barracauda]

@kalapnath ...that was my plan

 

[AussieCrazy]

stay away from the bio-balls. Bad idea. Run a spotless drain/skimmer section. Your on the right path for everything else.

+1

 

[RanRod512]

When making a refugium, how far off of the bottom of the tank should the Plexiglas dividers be, about how high.

You need it to be high enough to contain a good amount of water and low enough to hold the extra water syphoning from you DT after power loss. I think the magic number is 9 inches high.

 

[LatinP]

Water height shouldn't be much more than 3/4 of the way up so your sump can hold the water that'll drain down from the display in the case of a power outage.

In regards to design there's typically 2 different ways of doing it, the usual design has the first chamber as the skimmer second as fuge and third as a return. The other I like a little better and has the fuge on the left (or right) and the return on the middle with a tee junction coming down from your display and 2 drains one coming into the skimmer section and one into the fuge, you'd then put a ball valve on the fuge drain. The point of the second design is to get slow flow from the fuge and as much contact time as possible.

I found a picture online this is the basic principle:

The return goes in the middle, skimmer on the right and fuge is on the left and it basically cascades down into the return. The fuge is a slow flow area permitting the water more contact time with the algae and dsb.