Refugium Design Advice!

I want to try to build an acrylic refugium, sump, and frag tank. I'm going to start with the refugium. The refugium will hold Miracle Mud and Cheato. I have never built tanks before so i want to get some advice to make sure i don't make any mistakes. Let me know if you think my baffle dimensions are ok. Fuge is 36x24x24.5 and i will use 1/2" acrylic. I was planning to partially brace the top with 2 strips of 35"x2". Is it necessary? The 3 circles are 4" filter socks. Also, I want the overflow to handle up to 2000gph. It will be a high flow fuge between 1000gph and 1600gph. I want a lot of water running through the cheato. Currently i have 1 2" bulkhead in the design. Will i need 2 to handle 2000gph with current dimensions? Bulkhead is 5" under water line.

Let me know what you think!

 

I am no expert on fuges but this is what MY understanding on it is. 1st the volume of the fuge should be 10% of your total volume to be efficient (100 gal tank = 10 gal fuge) flow should also be about 30-50% per hr of your total water volume (100 gal tank 30-50 GPH flow, I may be wrong on this but it seems to be working for me). As far as flow through the piping here is some info I have. I cant find the link or I would give it to you.


On a gravity flow A 1/2" schedule 40 pipe will flow 420 GPH, a 1" will drain 960 GPH, A 1.25 will drain 1500 GPH. A 1.5" will flow 2100 GPH, a 2" will flow 3300 GPH these #'s are approximate and does not account for 90's, 45's...etc

 

Fuges should have a slower flow to be more beneficial. 1000gph is too high in my opinion. i think the Cheato would get blown away. im not an expert either, but when i had a sump i had a very slow flowing fuge and it worked well for me.

 

Think of it this way, if you have a turnover in your tank of less than 10X, you are likely to develop an algae problem. In the fuge, you want to encourage an algae problem. This means slow flow. If it was my fuge, I would shoot for somewhere around 800 gph.

 

Here is a link to a topic on this. According to Tangster my estimate is still to high. Hope it helps.

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

 

I have never found any hard data to say what size a fuge should be or what flow it should have and for what reasons. Only one guy ever stated that if the fuge is not half as big as your tank don't bother. Yet when pressed he never explained. Even with DSBs, I have never seen any data as to how much surface area ids needed for "X" benefit.

So.... having said that.... make the fuge and sand bed as big as you can. How big is your main system??? You can have macros and plenty of other critters in a sheltered planted tank. The only number I have heard is make it at least 10% DT to make it worth it.

Flow is a different story. There is a wide range of opinions and again no hard data. I have seen numbers of as little as 10x ACTUAL FUGE VOLUME up to 40%. Your fuge is going to be close to 100g after sand so 1000gph to 2000gph is on target. If you want to tumble the cheato though, you will not do it with that layout.

 

=1 This is something that has always baffled me as well. What does flow have to do with the rate macro is consuming nutrients out of the water? It still is always in contact with the water so flow should have little to do with how many nutrients are being used. Don't forget we are talking about a closed system. That water it missed will be back again and again. Of course you don't really want it roaring through there to the point it blows macro all over your DT.

 

Here is the general Sump room plan. Display Tank is 200g. Sump is also 36x24x24 and frag tank is 36x24x12.

 

The water literally "brings" nutrients to the algae. If you have too little flow (which, for the purposes of algae, is pretty low), you won't get enough nutrients to the algae, because there won't be enough water moving past it to push away the nutrient-deficient water.

That's kind of a dumb way to explain it, but it's pretty much why corals with high surface area on their polyps and high flow (SPS) grow their skeleton super quick relative to corals that like low rates of flow and have a lower surface area (LPS). They use calcium and carbonates instead of nitrates, but it works the same way.

 

Good link, i actually read that a while back. The fuge on my current system is a slow flow fuge that gets fed directly from DT the way tangster described. My issue with the slow flow setup is that detritus accumulates. I understand the concept of providing a perfect place for algae to grow so it is more likely to grow there then in the DT. This is how my current fuge is setup however i feel that too much detritus accumulates and i would rather get it out of system fast then let it break down.

I was planning to tune the flow to where i think it works best. Maybe slower will end up being better maybe 2000gph is too slow. Also, i want to use miracle mud and chaeto in the fuge. I want to it stay detritus free hence why i put filter socks. Check out this link for miracle mud. Miracle Mud Set-up Instructions They recommend different gph depending on the width of tank. 1400 to 1800 gph for 16" width and 2000 gph to 3000gph for 22" width. Based on their numbers 2000gph for 24" width might be too slow. Also keep in mind that the overflow is 24" in length. So water is flowing evenly across surface. 24" of equal flow at 2000gph is probably not that fast. Chaeto should grow faster in these conditions. Am i wrong? The main purpose for this fuge is to grow chaeto as fast as possible. I know it wont tumble but making it tumble would not work with mud on the bottom. I will just have to move it around once in a while but it should stay nice and clean with plenty of water flowing through it.

I wish i could find some hard data on Refugiums. Feel free to post links if you know of anything.