Sump plus refugium?
 

Hello all,

I've recently made the jump from cichlids over to the reef hobby. Due to a mandate from the wife, I'm only allowed to have one aquarium in the new house, so I wanted to make the most of it. I bought a 90 gallon reef ready tank and through advice from a lfs I bought a sump and skimmer. I've got it all set up and working great, but the more I read about refugiums and their benefits on Reef Central, the more I want to add one.

Here is my delima, I'm not the worlds greatest plumber, and hooking up the sump was easy. Hooking up a refugium into this loop is daunting at best to me, so I was wondering if there was a diagram somewhere that I was overlooking? Is there a recomended solution to this?

Thank you in advance for any advice you have on this, and thank you for all the great information I've gotten from these forums.

There will be a whole heaping mess of solutions for that, so many options, it's simply a matter of finding one that'll work best for ya. May wanna list the dimensions of the stand and current sump so we have an idea of the room you have to work with, along with the equpiment you're going to be putting in the sump. Pictures would help alot too.

I'll measure everything this weekend. The tank is a 90 gallons with the generic cabinet style aquarium stand under it. I know the sump is a 15 gallon tall (same width and depth as a 10), which takes up about half of the space under the cabinet. The tank is going into the basement, so space isn't much of an issue for it.

So far in the sump, I have a protein skimmer and the heaters for the tank. I'm at work right now, so I don't have all the specifics in terms of which skimmer and which heaters. Along with a pump for the skimmer and a pump to return water back to the tank.

Well, just off the top of my head, heres the two options i'd personally consider if it were my setup.

1) replace the 15 sump for a larger resevoir, a 30 or 40 breeder if they'll fit. Fit it with baffles (this is really easy to do btw) and utlize a sump/refugium in one combo unit.

2) since in the basement, stick up another tank next to, sump together, use the second tank as a large refugium. Bigger the better. This is what i'd prefer for my own tanks, but room available doesn't allow for it right now.

Thank you for the reply.

If I sump them together, then I'd route the overflow from both tanks into a central sump correct? Then I'd have 2 pumps in the central sump, one leading back to each tank? Does this cause any balance issues with water flow?

Sorry for the string of questions there, but I like the second solution better if I can make it work. Something scares me about having macro algae and other critters in the same tank as the pumps.

That's pretty much how my 2 x 75g's are setup. Only my return pump (mag 9) has the outlets split in two and one run to each tank. Could have gone with two smaller return pumps, but the single larger looks nicer in the sump and less 'crowded'. No balance issues as of yet, water is draining and returning to both tanks pretty equally. I'm sure there is some flow difference but not enough to effect the way it's working.

No worries on macro and critters with the pumps, that's what the baffles will help control for ya. And the pods in the refugium are too small to worry about around the pumps. They'll be just fine.

Thanks again. Time to draw up a new stand to incorporate a second tank into it.

Thank goodness for Christmas money :)

Hello,
Is your tank drilled, or are you using an overflow?
I have a 125 with a refugium and a sump and I use 2 overflows to manage the job. Not the most technically elegant solution, but it works well for me.

Matt

Yes, it is drilled. I started using drilled tanks with cichlids and will never look back. :)