Cracked fuge. What should I replace with
 

So I had family visiting last weekend and at the end of there stay my mom told me the carpet was wet around my tank! Thanks for the heads up haha. So after looking closer I found a crack along my refuge were I had Drilled for my bulkhead. I don't really want to grab a new 10g as when I Drilled it out a few years ago I went through 3 tanks since the glass is so thin.

Right now I have a 55gallon sump seperated into a return and skimmer section with 3 baffles in between. It used to have 3 sections with my fuge in there when I had that sump under my 70g but I took out one section when I moved to my bigger tank.

Now what's my best step moving forward, I don't mind redoing my plumbing underneath for a new sump. So should I look into getting a new sump that can fit everything in one, redo my current sump again, skip out on the fuge, macro reactor, magic fix all tank? Any suggestion appriacated my fellow reefers!

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If you don't need to look into it, a small, heavy duty plastic tote would work as a fuge.

Depends on what direction you want to go (I know right!). There are a lot of options available out there to grow macro algae these days. If this is the primary purpose of the refugium you could explore options of a reactor. If you have a traditional refugium with chaeto, pods and sand than obviously a reactor won’t replace that. If you have the room you could easily pickup a manufactured tank or get creative and build one.

I would strongly suggest not trying to patch a crack, especially where you have drilled. That would make me worry all the time that I am going to end up with a flood. You can also go without the fuge and look at other methods for nutrient exportation. I personally use a refugium with a ball of chaeto as a primary means of nutrient reduction. I also use a reactor with a small amount of GFO if my phosphates rise. Hope this gave you some feedback to your questions.

Cheers,

Devin

Yeah I was debating getting a plastic tote in there. Right now I have now cheato in there, could never get it to grow lol. I was basically running it with a sand bed and extra live rock I had. I do have 3 reactors I got in a closeout sale from another hobbiest. Right now I'm running carbon and gfo in them.

And yeah I wasn't planning on repairing ha, don't need a wet basement!

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Usually, stagnant chaeto growth is a sign of insufficient light. What do you run normally?

Also, ditch the sand and liverock. That sort of stuff has no place in a chaeto refugium. It just acts as a hard to clean detritus trap.

i was running a compact fluorescent, w/e one was recommended at the time, then i switched to a led that came with a tank i bought. I haven't had any cheato in there for years.I'm debating throwing the live rock /and or sand into my return section of my sump and then making a macro reactor