GPH thru refugium?

Ok so I am a bit confused as I have read in several places that you dont want more then 150 gph running thru your refugium as any faster it wouldnt be able to filter very well.

This being said I see that many people have their refugium as their sumps and the return pump is much more then 150 GPH. So how do you chamber a section for your refugium so you can restrict the flow to 150 GPH or so?

My only idea of doing this would be to make a section in the middle and divide it so that there is a passage for the majority of the water to return to your pump and then drill a couple small holes to limit flow thru the refugium. This would take some tweaking as the water level coming in and over flow to the refugium would have to be checked and guess aprox flow with said holes drilled before making an adjustment and drilling more holes.

So this is my basic idea you just have to bare with me and the drawing! LOL If the holes restrict the water coming in to the refugium then the only issue would be figuring out the height of the bubble trap needs to be to let if fill to the holes. The return from the refugium would be on the bulkhead to the bubble trap which is why there would be fingers so no water would leak to the refugium area by theory anyway.

Am I way off here or is this the general idea and principle?

 

http://www.3reef.com/forums/refugium/55g-refugium-flow-rate-38719.html

Good read is anyone else is wondering about this question. Apparently I am way off on my 150 GPH and its more like your fudge size per hour so 10 gallon fudge = 10 GPH

Now that being said only way I can think to obtain this rate would be a valve off my main sump line into the fudge which would feed over into the water passage in my diagram.

 

I run 250 gph (as measured by a flow meter) thru my 10g fuge and keep Mangroves. The Mangroves do a great job of removing Nitrates and Phosphates as they both read zero (and they didn't before I got the Mangroves). I don't use a DSB, just 1 inch of sand (the same as my display tank), so the flow rate (in my setup) doesn't matter so much as long as the sand doesn't get blown all around.

I'm just relaying what has worked for me. YMMV.

 

So the DSB is what requires the slower moving rate of flow?


Ughh... this is a harsh subject because from one stand point I can see why a slower flow would seem to allow things to naturally take their course but at the same time if its constantly submerged in the same water isnt it always doing the same thing? FILTERING??

 

If you are using algae in the fuge then the slower the better so there is greater contact time for nutrient take up. If it is refuge only for creatures that can't be in the DT then tailor the flow to the need of the inhabitants.

 

by putting the fuge on 1 side and the return in the middle you can taylor the flow to each section with a ball valve....