Customizing a Red Sea max with a fuge

Dear Forum Members

Ive recently joined this brilliant and most informative website to assist me with my project. I own a 130L Red sea max aquarium which was an ex-display at my LFS. The tank was already running and had plenty of purple coraline algae on the back wall of the tank with about 10kg of Live rock. Ive owned the tank for a year and have had many losses from fish to coral. There was not chiller with the RSM although i enquired about it, the LFS guy said I wouldnt need one as they had the tank running for about 2 years without any issues?

What i aim to do is add a custom bult sump/fuge into the cabinet of the Redsea max. There is plenty of room The dimensions of the Sump are 21"X15"X15".
Is it possible to add a sump/fuge with the Red sea max's own system? and run them inconjunction with each other?

Or will you require to disable the RSM system and let the sump fuge run as the primary source.

Will i require to shut down the tank whilst adding the sump? I would need to rehouse my stock whilst this transformation takes place and is not really an option?

Your advise would be most valueable and could save me lost of unnecessary costs?

 

I have alead done ths and have a band new sump band new n the box someone orderded with mine. It makes a big difference.

 

huh?

 

Lol The I and r are sticking on my computer sorry. I have built one of these and it makes a huge difference. I have about 15 more gallons of water and a real skimmer in mine. I have a skimmer rated for 4 times the tank size so it actually is one that works with the tank instead of the pos factory one.

 

Hi everyone i have been away from 3reef for a while. I am trying to do the same thing Avnish is trying to accomplish. I know there are people out there who have retrofitted their 34 gal Redsea max with a sump/fuge. Could you please post pics and how to's?

Where did you get your sumps?
How much did the system fun you?

I'm still a little confused how the whole system works without draining the main tank.

Thanks guys/gals!!!! =)

 

Hi Dude
Ive been doing lots of research on this, and theres quite a few modified RSM's on youtube.
the first thing ive done is get a sump/fuge made. the dimensions are 21X 15X 15X and this will be made of glass. This is costing me £70.($109 USD). the guy at my LFS does private contract work so he will be assisting me with the plumbing. I will upload a picture once my sump arrives.

 

After looking at tones of post and youtube videos I think im going to start building mine this weekend. What are you going to use to get the water to the sump? I think im going to go with this method. YouTube - How to - Aquarium overflow / sump / refugium. Some tips

I think I'm also going to axe all the stock filtration in the rear and move it all to the sump/fuge.

 

I designed mine and had it built by a sump compay for the dimensions I made. I had it set up to be able to use a larger skimmer and I used the pm redline 125. You can use the chiller attachment for the red sea to have as your return. Its pretty easy. My sump/refugium cost me about 320 and then the skimmer and then attachment for chiller 15 hose and fittings 10 so it was not the cheapest thing but I made mine the best I could get. I know you can make one out of a glass tank but I chose acrylic.

 

So I built the 10gal sump/fuge, and just got finished testing it out. I built this DIY overflow but it doesn't have enough flow. My return pump is about 270GPH and it out runs the overflow. I noticed if just made a straight siphon from the display tank to the sump/fuge then the return pump couldn't keep up with the over flow. I guess my questions is should I ditch that type of an over flow and go with some thing else? Have other people been successful with this type of overflow? It really seems like it just trickles out.

 

add a ball balve to the return line to restrict the return a little, you should then be able to find the proper balance between the overflow and the return.