changing refugium

I am going to change my sump. I am looking at a refugium/ sump. Right now I have a seperate 20 gal. refugium. I had a bad algae problem in display tank so set up refugium beside display tank. It has done its job. I want to put the fuge in the sump.(lights at night, astetics:-/) The fuge now has turned into an algae tank. If I do this the sump/fuge will not hold as much water as what I have now. Will this mess up balance of tank? I will lose all of the bennifits of the established refugium.Would you do this or not. (ps sump has leak)

 

I'd go for it. You will not lose any of the benefits of the established fuge, or if any very few. By just moving everything from your existing fuge to your new one, you will simply be relocating the refugium, keeping most/all of the benefits. Its like when a person upgrades tanks and moves all of their LR/LS, they don't need to cycle. Its already pretty much established. Whatever you do good luck.

 

If your sump has a leak, I would get it done for that reason alone. As long as you keep the flow the same through the fuge section of your sump, you shouldn't see any difference in your system's quality. Do take the same precautions as you would if you do a tank transfer. Don't disturb the sand much since you will probably release nitrates. After you get all the sand, LR and algaes transferred into the new sump/fuge, you could wait a day or two to let everything settle before running it into the system again.