[chad54827]

I've attached two design plans for a refugium / sump that i am planning on making with acrylic Baffles in a thirty gallon tank, for a 55 gallon display tank. I love the idea a refugium and what is does for the tank (amphipods, copapods, ph balancing etc.) I plan on keeping it on a reverse light schedule from the display and keep a deep sand bed with live rock and macro algae. My question is which design is truly more effective? I realize that a refugium should have slow water movement but my tank only cycles about 500 gph, is that too fast to have an inline refugium? or should i make it separate with a slower pump to it?

[NATIVEVAMAN]

I like the second design best.you dont need a pump to move the water to the fuge,you can feed it from a "T" off the main drain.Look at this drawing.

[chad54827]

Yeah i don't have hard plumming though, just a flex hose from my overflow. i was thinking about doing something like that with pvc though.

[NATIVEVAMAN]

I dont see why you couldnt do it either way.You can bring tubing down and change over to pvc.Or you could do it all with tubing.You can get all sorts of fittings that have "barbs" on them for attaching to tubing including valves.I would keep the flow thru the fuge low to keep the pods from washing away and most will agree that cheato grows a bit better in slow flow.

[SouthernAquaculture]

interesting design i think ima build one tomorrow out of a 20 long. ;D

[IceMan]

Originally Posted by NATIVEVAMAN

I like the second design best.you dont need a pump to move the water to the fuge,you can feed it from a "T" off the main drain.Look at this drawing.

wish i'd seen this before building my sump... i like it better than the one i built.