Just recently acquired a 120 gallon tank, got it drilled, started the plumbing for the refugium. has two 400 watt metal halide, and 1 96 watt t5 fixture. Will have pictures soon, if anyone has any helpful hints in setting up a refugium please let me know. any and all advice welcome!!!!

Depends on the refugium, in a standard 3 chamber, put the mud (I'm sure there's a techie name, I just call it Refugium Mud) in the middle compartment with a handful or two of Calurpa, a couple small crabs and pour Copapods and add a couple clams in the first chamber... the power-head in the third... the 1st chamber is a great place to add a Protein Skimmer & Phos reactor as well...
The third chamber I use for anything that needs disbursement since the power-head is there i.e. pour in PurpleUp, meds, plankton, etc...

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55gal ~ Freshwater
90gal ~ Saltwater
100gal ~ ?

If you have never setup a sump before here is a few things to consider.

1) If you have an hob type overflow be sure to include some way of initially establishing the siphon and to remove any air bubles as the come up to maintain siphon.

2) the pumped return lines can form a siphon on power off. Insure they can "get air" to break up that siphon. Outputs above water line is small holes above water line will suffice.

2) After initial setup turn power off to insure sump does not overflow.

3) turn power back on to insure normal operation returns.

4) Fail drain to insure the display (upper) tank does not flood. Drain failure can be either a blockage or with a siphon an siphon failure. Adjust levels in sump or display (lower) until the sump runs dry before the display tank floods.

5) then resume normal operation and add a line in the sump for the running water level.

6) never add water above that running level.


my .02

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fw leiden since 1979, fo salt since 1979, mixed reef 55g 2002-2009. Strong emphasis on the tank taking care of itself. Balanced with plant life, no water changes, tap water, no filters in FW. Only dosing calcium, alk, mag in marine reef tanks. http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/my-...ods-26410.html
recent tanks (till 2009) 7 years- 10g FW leiden 7 yrs, 55g mixed reef 7, 2 yrs, 20g FW leiden, 10 g fw leiden , 29g mixed reef, current tank 55g leiden

This is somewhat how I put my refugium in place:

Hope the info helps, any questions, please ask..

This is how I build all of mine and they always seem to work good.



I do sometimes add in a remote DSB before the sump/fuge but I still keep the same design for the sump/fuge

wow, thanks for all the advice, I've got everything up and running and just bought another 30 pounds of live rock today to add into the tank once I get it all set up and running! I should have pictures soon of the build. I'm most excited about my tattoo artist friend that's going to paint my background! An octopus fighting an underwater robot!!!

Interesting.

anyrate if you have never setup tank/refug/sump I highly suggest you get 2-3 plastic storage containers (or you sump and a container) to simulate the tank refug and sump. then set it up on the driveway and play around with it.

Much better to have an unexpected flood in the driveway then in the livingroom.


my .02

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fw leiden since 1979, fo salt since 1979, mixed reef 55g 2002-2009. Strong emphasis on the tank taking care of itself. Balanced with plant life, no water changes, tap water, no filters in FW. Only dosing calcium, alk, mag in marine reef tanks. http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/my-...ods-26410.html
recent tanks (till 2009) 7 years- 10g FW leiden 7 yrs, 55g mixed reef 7, 2 yrs, 20g FW leiden, 10 g fw leiden , 29g mixed reef, current tank 55g leiden

i didnt even partition mine out, its just a 90 gallon tank filled with macro algea, LR, LS, urchins, crabs, snails, sand sifting stars, etc.

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How big of a sump are you adding?

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