Can a sump be a fuge at the same time?

Good day all, I have a 10 gallon sump under my 46 Bow. It is partitioned in half and is being used as a wet dry filtration system with bio balls, and filter material. on the other side is just the return pump, can I use a piece of glass and partition off the return pump and put miracle mud and chaetao on the other side? the 10 gallon aquarium sump pretty much stays about half full at all times. Tell me what you think.

 

Yea, I have my 20 gal. long set up like that, only it has 3 sections, one for the drain/skimmer, refugium then return. A problem you may run into is that by only having two sections, you will need to have the refugium by the drain and that will cause the mud/sand to continually be stirred up. The best thing to do is have 3 sections, one for the drain/skimmer/ refugium then return. But a 10 gal.may be too small to do this adequately.

 

that is what i am thinking, it might be too small

 

unless i add another baffle from where the water exits the wet dry, that would elliminate the water hitting directly the mud and stirring it up, it would than have to go up and over the baffle.

 

You really need to look at what you want. A fuge is a refugium. A refuge for small critters (pods) to get away from predators. So the population grows. Then they get carried away at some point and make it to the display tank. All you need to grow some pods is some rock rubble to give them a bit of a habitat.

A fuge is a good place to put some macro algae, but that isn't what it is for. But the algae gives some habitat, and it is a nitrate/phosphate sponge. So it is a way to export nutrients. Macro algae does not care where it is put. Put it in your sump, spread it across a screen.... whatever.

A deep sand bed it a way to process nitrates. In the oxygen depeted zones it will grow bacteria that break down nitrates to nitrogen. Now plenty of floks have remote DSBs in a 5 gallon bucket or in another dark tank.

So putting it all together... a refuge for the pods is a good place to do all three. But you need slow flow. Detrius is carried to the fuge, the critters eat it, the worms and micro fauna in the sand bed keep it moving, the bacteria breaks down nitrates, and the algae soaks up everything else.

By having such a small section with such high flow through it, it really isnt a fuge and there is not much need for the sand bed. You could grow cheato pretty easy. It isn't that you can't do it, it is just that I doubt you would get much benefit out of the sand and it would be pretty turbulent for the pods.

 

thats what i really want is is just to put some Chaeto in there to absorb the nitrates. I will be putting in a 4 inch live sand bed in my aquarium. As far as adding the Chaetao to the return section of my Sump, do i need to keep it pretty far away from the return pump? Should i section off the return pump to make sure that the Chaetao stays away from it?

 

Ya, you will want to coral it somehow, or run a sponge filter on your pump inlet.

 

One thing to keep in mind is that if you're using it as a place to grow macro algae the size is pretty much directly proportional to the benefit you receive from it, as far as nutrient export goes.

I've read that in order to actually be an efficient/significant source of nutrient export the refugium with macro in it should be something like at least 50% of the display tank volume. Which is much larger than most people. Of course having an undersized macro refugium will do some good and certainly won't hurt except by potentially giving you a false sense of security about your nutrient exports.

Just a couple things to consider!