I had a lot of fun planning, and building, a refugium for my Fluval Evo 13.5 tank. It took 2 weeks to cycle this tank, so this is what I accomplished while waiting (and staring at) an empty tank. I put about 5 hours of work into it, and the materials were about $35.
I really wanted an adjustable shelf so I could have options in the top sections above the refugium. I ended up putting enough brackets in so I could have 2 shelves if I ever want to do that.
I did also create a block section to limit the horizontal flow in the sump to only the top 3 openings. I hadn't seen that done elsewhere, just thought it would improve flow through the top filter department. It seems to be working just fine in routing the flow through the top filter, and I do not believe my flow is affected negatively at all.
Media Rack I made out of the UV higher end plexiglass from Lowes. Only used 1 of the small sheets for the whole project. My standard drill bit did fine on drilling the holes, and I bought a little exacto knife to make the long cuts (which was tedious and hard...) The adjustable rack is just some eggcrate I cut up and glued on there.
Another view of the Media Rack
This is a section I cut to block all the horizontal holes in the sump except the top 3 holes. I wanted to make sure all the flow through the sump was going through the top section of the rack where my filters are at. Blocking all but the top 3 holes doesn't seem to have any negative impact (yet)
(Unlabeled view of chamber 1)
Labeled view of Chamber 1. I'm not sure the Clearmax and Biomax has any flow at all, so I may need to put some sort of small pump in there someday (air pump?).
(unlabeled view of media rack, filled)
Labeled view of media rack.
(unlabeled view of chamber 2)
Labeled view of Chamber 2. I have no idea if the live sand in the top bag and the substrate biofilter in the bottom will encourage pods to multiply there, but I guess I'll find out. I found some Eheim substrate which is large porous balls, and it looked decent for a base. This picture shows that the coarse filter is cut into an L-shaped tetris piece so it hits the top 3 holes of between the chambers.
This 10W LED from Amazon is incredibly bright. Reportedly 6000K. I plugged it in for a few hours and there is barely any heat to be worried about, so I decided to mount it with 3M Dual Lock. This is the stuff you hang your toll-booth transponder to your windshield.
Finished refugium with light. Not shown in this picture is a pretty handy little surge outlet I found on Amazon that I can control from anywhere with an app. Each outlet can also be scheduled. So, I have my main DT light and Fuge light set to be on at opposite times. The wifi controllable outlet is a dream, and it was only about 25 bucks.
Well, hope you enjoyed my project as much as I did. I'm open to any input on changing things around. This is literally my first tank, so I really don't know what I'm doing... Mostly, I hoped to put this all in one place so the next guy doesn't have to search around as much as I did...
I really wanted an adjustable shelf so I could have options in the top sections above the refugium. I ended up putting enough brackets in so I could have 2 shelves if I ever want to do that.
I did also create a block section to limit the horizontal flow in the sump to only the top 3 openings. I hadn't seen that done elsewhere, just thought it would improve flow through the top filter department. It seems to be working just fine in routing the flow through the top filter, and I do not believe my flow is affected negatively at all.
This is a section I cut to block all the horizontal holes in the sump except the top 3 holes. I wanted to make sure all the flow through the sump was going through the top section of the rack where my filters are at. Blocking all but the top 3 holes doesn't seem to have any negative impact (yet)
(Unlabeled view of chamber 1)
Labeled view of Chamber 1. I'm not sure the Clearmax and Biomax has any flow at all, so I may need to put some sort of small pump in there someday (air pump?).
(unlabeled view of media rack, filled)
Labeled view of media rack.
(unlabeled view of chamber 2)
Labeled view of Chamber 2. I have no idea if the live sand in the top bag and the substrate biofilter in the bottom will encourage pods to multiply there, but I guess I'll find out. I found some Eheim substrate which is large porous balls, and it looked decent for a base. This picture shows that the coarse filter is cut into an L-shaped tetris piece so it hits the top 3 holes of between the chambers.
This 10W LED from Amazon is incredibly bright. Reportedly 6000K. I plugged it in for a few hours and there is barely any heat to be worried about, so I decided to mount it with 3M Dual Lock. This is the stuff you hang your toll-booth transponder to your windshield.
Finished refugium with light. Not shown in this picture is a pretty handy little surge outlet I found on Amazon that I can control from anywhere with an app. Each outlet can also be scheduled. So, I have my main DT light and Fuge light set to be on at opposite times. The wifi controllable outlet is a dream, and it was only about 25 bucks.
Well, hope you enjoyed my project as much as I did. I'm open to any input on changing things around. This is literally my first tank, so I really don't know what I'm doing... Mostly, I hoped to put this all in one place so the next guy doesn't have to search around as much as I did...
