Building a separate refugium tank

[Devaji]

Outside in. Always.

One of my first attempts at drilling (it was a 20 gallon to boot), I did inside out. It turned out poorly and was super awkward; granted I didn't really know what I was doing AND the glass is super thin on a 20 gallon. So yeah, anyway, outside in is the easiest way to go - just make sure you put a towel down to catch the hole when it falls.

lol, yup, the things we say in this hobby...

I drill using two principals: Patience and a slow finish. My preferred drill (for this task), which I used on 95% of the first hole, I can just zip tie on full throttle, hold it upright with my hand resting on the back for weight (it's a cheap and light drill) and I just need to stand there until the water starts running through. Once the other side of the glass is breached, I remove the zip tie and manually control the drill; applying weight slowly to expand the breach into a full circle. I also find it takes much longer than the youtube videos claim (2-5 minutes, while mine take 15 minutes); perhaps I have less 'break-out'. Which is in this case was almost none, just a tiny bit on the second hole (1mm) and about 5-8mm on the second, each less than 1mm diameter.

Granted, my skill has improved, inside out would require a more complex apparatus and ultimately be more awkward to do. However, given the likely hood of the hole having 'break-out', I can see the advantage to going inside out.

yeah some ppl like to drill inside out just for that reason of there is a break out it's on the nut side of the bulk head. if it a bad break out could mess the gasket. I see the value to this. but man that would be so awkward...I have only drilled 2 tanks both 40br 1st time i crack the glass the 2nd time I got it. I am in the process of moving my 90 cube with internal overflow so want to drill it...but just cant bring myself to try it on a $700+ tank.

 

[najer]

Nice work on the drilling, coming along nicely. :)

 

[sbash]

yeah some ppl like to drill inside out just for that reason of there is a break out it's on the nut side of the bulk head. if it a bad break out could mess the gasket. I see the value to this. but man that would be so awkward...I have only drilled 2 tanks both 40br 1st time i crack the glass the 2nd time I got it. I am in the process of moving my 90 cube with internal overflow so want to drill it...but just cant bring myself to try it on a $700+ tank.

Theoretically, now I've never done this, but you can put the bulkhead's gasket on either side of the hole; so if the break-out is too large, you can just put the bulkhead on the outside, against the nut.

I find thicker glass easier, it can bear the weight of the drill better. I have only ever cracked on tank, it was a small 20 gallon frag tank, so the glass was pretty thin; and I was able to just caulk the crack with no leaks.

That said, if you are getting a large breakout, or cracks, then you are applying too much pressure. That gets tricky when you are only using the weight of the drill, so I guess you would need to switch to a lighter drill?

 

[sbash]

Phase 1 is complete!

Wow that light is bright, this is on about 10%. I put is more of my junky live rocks (you know, the stuff that works, but isn't DT quality). I figure the aquascape doesn't matter as much, so the rocks are not placed with any level of artistic license. I will probably add another pile of rubble to fill in some of the gaps; but this is good enough for now. The heater and powerhead is just until I plumb it into the main system.

I dropped some food in there too, so we'll see if the ammonia spikes. The water is cloudy, so either there is a bacterial bloom, or it is still settling from adding the rocks. If the ammonia is stable, I have a couple fish to throw in. I can also now look into getting a couple fish which are not reef-safe, should be neat!

Also, not pictured, I scattered a few macros around, mostly from the old fuge, some from another system's culling of caulerpa (prolifera and grapes).

 

[SDReefer]

This looks like a cool project! Is the live rock already cured? If it is, I'd assume that it will be a short cycle, or perhaps no cycle at all.

 

[sbash]

This looks like a cool project! Is the live rock already cured? If it is, I'd assume that it will be a short cycle, or perhaps no cycle at all.

They should be fully live. I have a 55 gallon with circulation packed full of rocks, I throw in a few sinking food discs once a week or so. Normally I just use them and don't think anything of it, but I took one nice rock out and put it in a 5.5 a few weeks back and there was ammonia for about a week, then nothing (I don't even remember what prompted me to test the ammonia). I found that odd, lol... Anyway, I'm being over cautious. No ammonia today, so I added in a large serving of flake food. If I don't see any ammonia over the next few days it is good to go!

 

[sbash]

Well, it was a tight cut...

But, after some careful manoeuvring I freed the bottom piece.

I took a few inches off the vertical, and extended the horizontal line and it almost fit perfectly. The first week, I just added some basic Caulerpa and there was a good jag of growth, so I added most of the rest of the macros with good success! Funny thing about the grapes (two different types), they both melted away to a base stalk and started regrowing from there...

BUT, it needed to be about a 1/4" higher, so I had to put a rubber fitting instead of a normal straight connector. This allowed enough flex to fire it back up:

The surge of water messed up my sand, so I had to move the sea grass, lol... But yeah, it's live! Super exciting. I have been thinking about doing this for over a year. I can fix the water level by adding some plumbing to the overflows - I'll deal with that later. The powerhead is not active right now, I just left it in there if I need it. I would also like to add a lot more rubble, hopefully I will be able to do that this weekend (as well as fill the old fuge chamber with rubble).

Anyway, so far so good, I am super curious to see about how the macros grow and how my gha in the DT dies off...

 

[B-ridge]

I have the same light. I didn’t see where we can turn down the intensity on them. I have a 75 gallon fuge that I built the stand for it slightly higher then my sump tank. This way the water flows into my sump just using gravity. I wanted to put sand in my fuge but read how it would create problems down the line. There are some macros I like and would look nice mounted in the sand. But majority of those go asexual and I don’t wanna take that chance.
Anyway. Great build so far. I’m definitely following

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

A fun thing I've done with my fuge is through a filter sponge in there, preferably one with larger pores. It'll not only provide a great pod habitat, some weird stuff starts to grow on/in there that won't grow on live rock.

 

[sbash]

I have the same light. I didn’t see where we can turn down the intensity on them. I have a 75 gallon fuge that I built the stand for it slightly higher then my sump tank. This way the water flows into my sump just using gravity. I wanted to put sand in my fuge but read how it would create problems down the line. There are some macros I like and would look nice mounted in the sand. But majority of those go asexual and I don’t wanna take that chance.
Anyway. Great build so far. I’m definitely following

Thanks!

There are two versions of the light I bought, one with a dimmer and one without. I made sure to purchase the one with. That said, it is a pretty generic Chinese black-box plant grow light, so I'm sure there are lots of variations out there.

A fun thing I've done with my fuge is through a filter sponge in there, preferably one with larger pores. It'll not only provide a great pod habitat, some weird stuff starts to grow on/in there that won't grow on live rock.

Hmm... Interesting, I do have a couple spare sponges...

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

I've got some weird tube things unlike anything I've seen in my fuge rock. It doesn't seem to be a plant or an animal, so I'm not sure.

 

[Mayerlyn A]

I have a little 7.5 display draining into a sump for my 75.

Excited to see more people doing this, it really adds another nice area to enjoy for our inhabitants.

This looks really nice, I really want to do something like this .

 

[Chef Tommy]

This looks really nice, I really want to do something like this .

Thank you! It was a fun build. I actually just took it down though for a move.