Adding refugium to sump

[HarleyC]

Hi Guys,
Have the new tank all set up now and it's loooking good - will post pics later.
First tests yesterday were fairly decent (DKH 9, Nitrate 25, Phosphate 0.05, Calcium 400, Magnesium 1.350) apart from Nitrate around 25, which is to be expected initially, correct?
This was a 4 year established tank that we moved.

Big shout out to Raf and Diana at Aquatic escapes and Burgerchow (seller) for their help!

Anyway, I have the 3', 50G sump, but there isn't a dedicated refugium portion. At this point I don't want to empty it all and add a glass partition etc.
Any ideas for drop in refugiums and what works best? - I currently have about 10 x 10 inches of space I could utilize. Or, 10x16" if the return pipes can feed in to the refugium?

Thanks in advance for the help.
Harley

[gridley]

A few weeks ago I made a refugium area to me sump and it seems to be working. My sump is smaller - it holds about 23g and is very simply: raw water chamber, filter socks, skimmer section, baffles, return pump section. I divided the return pump section in two using the front part for a refugium. What I did was to get an inexpensive piece of corpalst, cut it to size and use it as a baffle. The waterflow through the refugium happens two ways. When I feed I turn off the retun pump and skimmer and the whole sump fills with water - when the pumps go on again the water level goes back to normal and there has been a full flush of the refugium. I also have my outlet hose from the GFO/Carbon reactor come into the top of the new refugium area.

It is far from perfect, but like you I didn't want to drain and take apart the sump - that didn't seem practicle.

[Madmak]

I've found that a fuge works best if the turnover is quite low (less than 10 times the volume per hour) and if you feed it dirty water (straight from the tank is the dirtiest). Each sump is different and there are many ways to plumb it but a lot of people send part of their drain water straight to their fuge before the socks or skimmer via a "T" and ball valve.

I ran a 200 GPH pump in my drain chamber (off to the right) over to my fuge and used a mini overflow to drain it back to the return chamber. Most of my drain water was filtered and skimmed but a small amount went through my fuge and then carried pods and such back up to the DT.

[HarleyC]

Thanks Guys!