Reef Tank DIY - For Dummies

[philg3]

It's not a huge deal, but since you're starting from scratch I would do

Filter Socks > Refugium > Skimmer > Return.

Refugium's work better when placed in front of the Skimmer, or even Parallel to the Skimmer because a lot of the nutrients that the refugium uses to grow would be "skimmed" out if the skimmer was placed in front. Obviously the skimmer won't skim out everything, but if we're going with best practice, try and feed the refugium as much good nutrients (and pods!) from the display as possible, and then let the skimmer pick up whats left over.

Some people even T off the overflow so that the water heading to the refugium doesn't go through the filter socks. This method is to save some of those pods that are coming from the display that would otherwise be caught in the filter socks and get thrown away. Check out some of the higher end manufactured sumps from Trigger and Eshopps to get ideas for layout.

For making baffles, I had good success just going to a local glass shop and having them cut me the glass to the correct size. Just make sure you get aquarium safe silicon and be generous - remember that bubble traps are your friend.

[Dash]

Thanks for your input philg3. There seems to be a bit of a discussion about this, and I'm going to start taking notes since my head is swirling with info. Is the layout dependent on what the refugium is mainly for, ie nutrient export or pod farm? For me, I want a place to increase pod population. I was lucky enough to get great live rock that a local reefer had for more than 10 years. My tank never had a cycle, haven't had nuisance algae issues and it's supported my mandarin for a year. However, I'd like to get a mate for my mandarin and possibly pipe fish, so my aim is to establish a pod haven.

So much food for thought. I'm finding it hard to make any decisions, hence my new tank has been sitting since June

[philg3]

If the goal is to provide pods to the aquarium, you just have to think about it as a "refuge" where there is slower flow and no predators. Rock rubble and Chaeto will give them a place to hide and the slower flow will help them from getting sucked away into the display before they have a chance to breed.

I attached a Diagram similar to the way I had a sump setup years ago. You put the Refugium on the other side of the return pump, so both the skimmer chamber and refugium empty into the return section separately from either side. You can either T off the overflow like on the diagram, or T off the return pump back into the refugium. Either way put a ball valve after the T and you can slow down the flow into the refugium while still having a high turnover through the skimmer and the rest of your filtration equipment.

[Dash]

Thanks for the diagram. Really helps as it's hard for me to visualize these things