External Refugium setup and thoughts

[vlangel]

My 56 gallon display tank drains into a 30 gallon refugium which drains into a 20 gallon sump. The sump has the return pump that sends the water back up to the display. Its simple and efficient. The macro algae in the fuge so effectively take up nutrients that I took my skimmer offline and I have 16 fish in the display.

 

[amahairas]

This looks like a 20 and 20 project, 20 for the jun--- equipment and 20 for the fuge. Either a double 45 pvc double drill or parallel drill at the bottom. Lotsa space used. At this point just clear out the basement and build the sumproom. A 10 g fuge is kinda small esp if your return pump is goin there. Properly baffled you'll be refilling water daily if you dont cover everything. Think of the evaporation. Three tanks. 100g system.

What do you mean by a double 45 pvs double drill? The space isnt a big deal as I've said before there is space in my cabinet and I also can just build an additional equipment cabinet beside my DT stand, that would be nice anyways cause it would cover my power head controllers, and ATO controllers. I also have the ATO system so I'm not overly worried about evaporation and a simple cover wouldnt be overly difficult. 10g is probably large than most prefab sump/fuge refugium chambers

 

[amahairas]

My 56 gallon display tank drains into a 30 gallon refugium which drains into a 20 gallon sump. The sump has the return pump that sends the water back up to the display. Its simple and efficient. The macro algae in the fuge so effectively take up nutrients that I took my skimmer offline and I have 16 fish in the display.

Sheesh! Now that what Im talking about! That sounds like a killer set up. I feel like gravity feeding either the fuge or the return from the fuge to sump is going to have to be the way to go. Seem to difficult to balance to pumps, pumping against each other

 

[codee]

Following along here - I’m planning on using a 11 gallon cube as an external display refugium. Since it is vertically in between my sump and tank, I am going to try plumbing a T off my DT main drain to it (along with some ball valves to control flow). Then the refugium will drain into the sump.

 

[vlangel]

https://photos.app.goo.gl/jFdCzfE7mhmZLMgi7
Here is my fuge and sump.

My display tank is in the livingroom of our ranch home while the fuge and sump are in our basement. There is no reason why the same set up wont work with all the tanks in the same area as long as there is a stepping down of each tank to a lower tank so that gravity can do its thing.