LunaWolf98
New Member
I'm doing research ahead of time before buying and setting up my first saltwater tank. It will be FOWLR, with the exception of possibly an anemone down the road at some point if/when I'm confident I can take care of one properly. The display tank will be in the range of 20-30 gallons and the sump is likewise flexible, sizing up or down to fit whatever stand I end up with for the display tank.
Planned tank inhabitants would be a pair of clownfish, a mandarin dragonet, likely a watchman goby or another kind of cleaner goby, and possibly a firefish or dartfish, and possibly a small kind of wrasse, as well as eventual additions to add to make a clean-up crew such as snails and crabs.
The image I attached is more or less what I had pictured, and I want to know if this design would work, as I want to make sure I'll have a steady supply of 'pods to keep my dragonet happily fed. I want to know if it's possible to set up a sump system with sock filter, protein reactor, media trays, bubble trap, and return pump and heater chamber, along with a separate refugium sitting overhead in a separate shelf, or potentially side by side if the stand was deep enough. The separate refugium would be a standard 5 or 10 gallon tank with light, and be fed from a steady trickle flow from E-drain on overflow box, set up herbie style, as well as a recirculation Tee and valve on one of the return lines that would drain into the refugium. The refugium would have a small pump inside of it with tubing to drain water back into the sump, which would likely enter at the return pump chamber and thus enter one or both return lines; or a third pump in the sump return chamber that would draw water from the refugium and into the sump, performing the same but in reverse (as I'm not certain the pump inside the refugium would break siphon in case of power outage). The only reason I thought of such a set-up is because this way I could get a significantly larger volume of water for my refugium, more algae in the fuge, potentially a small non-'pod-eating invertebrate, and a much larger population of 'pods overall than an in-sump style refugium. Custom Aquarium has their own Seamless Sump system that connects a refugium/reservoir tub to the return pump chamber with tubing, but any stand I'd get would not be wide enough to put them side by side. Is this a viable set-up?
Please let me know! Any and all advice will be happily accepted, as I am definitely not new to owning fish and tanks up to 50 gallons, but this is my first marine tank and I want it to go as flawlessly as possible!
Planned tank inhabitants would be a pair of clownfish, a mandarin dragonet, likely a watchman goby or another kind of cleaner goby, and possibly a firefish or dartfish, and possibly a small kind of wrasse, as well as eventual additions to add to make a clean-up crew such as snails and crabs.
The image I attached is more or less what I had pictured, and I want to know if this design would work, as I want to make sure I'll have a steady supply of 'pods to keep my dragonet happily fed. I want to know if it's possible to set up a sump system with sock filter, protein reactor, media trays, bubble trap, and return pump and heater chamber, along with a separate refugium sitting overhead in a separate shelf, or potentially side by side if the stand was deep enough. The separate refugium would be a standard 5 or 10 gallon tank with light, and be fed from a steady trickle flow from E-drain on overflow box, set up herbie style, as well as a recirculation Tee and valve on one of the return lines that would drain into the refugium. The refugium would have a small pump inside of it with tubing to drain water back into the sump, which would likely enter at the return pump chamber and thus enter one or both return lines; or a third pump in the sump return chamber that would draw water from the refugium and into the sump, performing the same but in reverse (as I'm not certain the pump inside the refugium would break siphon in case of power outage). The only reason I thought of such a set-up is because this way I could get a significantly larger volume of water for my refugium, more algae in the fuge, potentially a small non-'pod-eating invertebrate, and a much larger population of 'pods overall than an in-sump style refugium. Custom Aquarium has their own Seamless Sump system that connects a refugium/reservoir tub to the return pump chamber with tubing, but any stand I'd get would not be wide enough to put them side by side. Is this a viable set-up?
Please let me know! Any and all advice will be happily accepted, as I am definitely not new to owning fish and tanks up to 50 gallons, but this is my first marine tank and I want it to go as flawlessly as possible!
