Refugium in 20 gal AIO - success stories

[newreeferontheblock]

Would love to get tips from anyone who has been successful with a refugium in the back of a 20 gal IM AIO (or similar).

I bought this tray from intank, this light from amazon, and some Cheato from algaebarn. Hover, over the past month or so - despite nuisance algae thriving the display - the cheato just shrinks / melts / browns (and breaks off plenty of strands to get struck everywhere). Any thoughts on what I can do better?

 

[Fapman]

Would love to get tips from anyone who has been successful with a refugium in the back of a 20 gal IM AIO (or similar).

I bought this tray from intank, this light from amazon, and some Cheato from algaebarn. Hover, over the past month or so - despite nuisance algae thriving the display - the cheato just shrinks / melts / browns (and breaks off plenty of strands to get struck everywhere). Any thoughts on what I can do better?

I've been interested in doing so as well, but this would ultimately mean I would have to remove the skimmer.

 

[Jason Scalise]

Would love to get tips from anyone who has been successful with a refugium in the back of a 20 gal IM AIO (or similar).

I bought this tray from intank, this light from amazon, and some Cheato from algaebarn. Hover, over the past month or so - despite nuisance algae thriving the display - the cheato just shrinks / melts / browns (and breaks off plenty of strands to get struck everywhere). Any thoughts on what I can do better?

I did this in my IM Nuvo 20 AIO recently.
The build thread is here.

It has been about 5 months with this now and I can say that it has worked well. I just recently reduced the photo period because my nitrates were getting too low. Pulling out a good sized ball of macro every couple of weeks. One of the key parts about this was that if I wanted to ditch it or needed the space for something, I literally could get rid of it altogether in less than a minute.

I also have a skimmer running in a separate chamber.

Hope this helps and perhaps gives some ideas if nothing else.

 

[FitCoral09]

I have this tank coming soon and I would love to do this as well!

 

[kdsmithey]

How is the refugium doing now? Did you make any changes? I’m considering adding a fuge in one of the chambers of my AIO as well.

 

[Jason Scalise]

Thanks.
I made some changes to the bracket a few weeks after installing it. Made it lower profile and more form-fitting to the light.

I cut a strip of plexiglass and then heated it up briefly under a clean flame (without burning it) so it was pliable. And then pressed it on the back of the light to custom mold it into place. Then drilled new holes for the nylon bolds and nuts. Took about 10 min all in.



The magnets are still attached to the back panel. these strong magnets come with adhesive tape on one side (home depot).



And then it looks and fits like this installed.
Much less (close to zero) light leakage. When all the lights in the DT are out, it no longer looks like I left a flashlight behind the tank.

There are two additional magnets here on the top side of the plastic. So the plastic is sandwiched between two magnets on each side. The small magnets on the top side are not glued or attached to the plastic. They are held in place just by the magnetic force of the ones attached to the back panel of the tank. This way, I can adjust them easily. And this light fixture does not weigh much. It is MORE than strong enough to stay there without any wiggle or sagging.
I have the light on a timer to come on opposite of DT lights.


Here is the original setup...which I did not like so much. So I think this is an improvement.



It has been growing cheato well. In fact, I just harvested another ball this morning. I also had to reduce the photo period by a few hours as my nitrates were dropping lower than I wanted. That adjustment plus the harvest should reduce the strength of nutrient export.

And the corals continue to do well.
This was the echinopora as it looked in Oct 2023,


and this is it today (3 mo later).