Bigger refugium

Vette67

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I currently have a 20L that has been my refugium for 20 years. A friend of mine has a drilled 40 that he gave me, and I want to replace my existing 20 with the 40. My 20 has a well established DSB, that I pretty much don’t touch. Occasionally, a small section will foul, turn black with sulfur dioxide, so I’ll reach in and stir that area with my hand to oxygenate it, but other than that, I leave it alone. So I need to transfer it to the new 40. I obviously need about double the arragonite now, and I have freshly washed available and ready to go. The question is, what do you think I should do with the old sand? I’m thinking I should rinse most of it because I’m sure at this point, it’s pretty clogged up with detritus. That may be a good or bad thing, because it is not fouled up now, and I’m sure the bacterial colony is well established. Wanting to know opinions on whether I should rinse the old gravel or just dump it in the new tank as is, gunk and all.
 

xxkenny90xx

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Definately give it a good rinse and reuse it! There's gonna tons of nasty gunk in there. I've also heard people recommend using new sand but let's be real here, there is no such thing as "new sand". There is a huge sand rinse thread on here that'll give you all of the info you need
 
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Vette67

Vette67

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I was leaning towards rinsing 3/4 of it and then using what was left to seed the new and cleaned sand. Something fun for tomorrow. I’ve increased my sump level by 1”, so hopefully that’ll be enough extra water to fill the new fuge. My “new” sand is old sand that I took out of my tank years ago and has been sitting in a bucket ever since. I rinsed that and it should be good to go now.
 

xxkenny90xx

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Found it! Give it a look and go from there!

 
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Vette67

Vette67

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Ok. Done. I essentially washed most of the sand by hosing it out with cold water in my slop sink. A lot of brown crud came out. But I put about 2 quarts of old sand back in, in the raw. So we’ll see how it does. That’ll bring my total volume of water, minus consideration for live rock and sand, to somewhere around 350 gallons in my system.
6A1D5379-20EF-442B-95FF-ED7B999952FC.jpeg


Old 20L is to the right,still crusted and smelling real fresh right now.
 

Amaroq

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Hey there, any chance you have a build thread somewhere or even just more pics of that 40B stand you built? I really appreciate that you built it adequetly without wanting to be able to park a car on top of it for the sake of peace of mind haha I'm playing around with different designs for a stand for my 40B and had practically talked myself out of using nicer hardwoods because I was overbuilding my design to such a degree I'd be spending a small fortune on lumber, which is hard to justify if I could spend a quarter that on 2x4s, but they're just so bulky. It looks like the legs are 1x4s, I see a few brackets on the inside, is that whats holding the legs together or did you use pocket screws as well? What is the top panel, 3/4" ply? and lastly is the crossbeams connecting the legs under the top panel just 1x2s? Thanks!!
 
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Vette67

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Hey there, any chance you have a build thread somewhere or even just more pics of that 40B stand you built? I really appreciate that you built it adequetly without wanting to be able to park a car on top of it for the sake of peace of mind haha I'm playing around with different designs for a stand for my 40B and had practically talked myself out of using nicer hardwoods because I was overbuilding my design to such a degree I'd be spending a small fortune on lumber, which is hard to justify if I could spend a quarter that on 2x4s, but they're just so bulky. It looks like the legs are 1x4s, I see a few brackets on the inside, is that whats holding the legs together or did you use pocket screws as well? What is the top panel, 3/4" ply? and lastly is the crossbeams connecting the legs under the top panel just 1x2s? Thanks!!
I unfortunately cannot take credit for that stand. It was “professionally” built. A friend of mine had the 40 set up and drilled for saltwater. He took the tank down years ago and it has been his basement since and he recently offered it to me for free, so I took it. Now I did build the stand for my 180, and like I said, 95% of the weight is being supported on the 3/4” oak plywood. I tried to look up the compression strength of plywood and could only find something like 3000lbs/ foot. And I didn’t feel like calculating anything beyond that to figure out what my stand could actually support.
I’d be happy to take pictures of that 40B stand. That top plate does look like 3/4” plywood. It has the same x pattern as the piece on the floor.
 

Amaroq

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Whenever most convenient for you that would be great and I'd be very appreciative! Even just a single picture showing the inside of the stand legs and the underside where the tank sits would likely tell me most of what I'm hoping to learn. I assume you haven't noticed any sagging in the time you've had it? Looks rock solid!
 
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Vette67

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Whenever most convenient for you that would be great and I'd be very appreciative! Even just a single picture showing the inside of the stand legs and the underside where the tank sits would likely tell me most of what I'm hoping to learn. I assume you haven't noticed any sagging in the time you've had it? Looks rock solid!
Here’s the underside. They used some angle brackets to box things together.
D88DA8F2-EC16-458C-9FDC-4A8D74A6208D.jpeg
 

Amaroq

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Interesting! So it looks like the builder just glued and clamped the legs together rather then using screws, and the bits I thought were 1x2s appear to just be some strips of 3/4 ply. One last question! Do you know how the X panels are attached to the legs? I imagine just glue and those metal brackets based on the rest of the design, or did they run screws through the top and bottom plywood Xs down into the legs? Thanks again, that picture was exactly what I was hoping for!!
 
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Vette67

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Unfortunately I can’t answer that without draining the tank. I can’t say I remember seeing screw heads at the top of those legs holding them in place, but I also can’t be 100% sure of that either. I would think the brackets and glue would be enough to hold them in place, because gravity would work to keep the legs on the plywood.

Happy to help.
 

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