RDSB set-up...

[chrisdamage]

does this filtration sound ***-backwards to anyone?

1. Main display gravity fed into:
2. RDSB(remote deep sand bed) in a 5 gallon bucket with a sand bed of extremely fine live sand about 8" in depth gravity fed into:
3. refugium full of LR and macro algae into:
4. return chamber with the protein skimmer

is this essentially backwards?

and, can it potentially work in this order but with obvious less efficiency than if the skimmer was in the first chamber?

[mbbuna]

yes it should go like this IMO

1- water from tank feed to skimmer

2-RDSB

3- refugium

4- back to tank

you want to filter the water in the skimmer first to get rid of particulate and proteins so they dont have to be processed by bugs and bacteria. the RDSB is for natural nitrate reduction, so when set up like this you dont really want or need particulate settling on the sand. you really just want the bacteria to proses the nitrogen in the water. by having the refugium last just before the return pump you will have a natural food source for the display tank.

[chrisdamage]

I know, it ****es me off because when I bought my refugium, I didn't realize that it was set-up *** backwards. The refugium is set-up like this:

1. water from tank into filter socks
2. water through filter socks into refugium
3. water from refugium to skimmer and back to tank

It doesn't make sense to me in hindsight why they would do this. But its the refugium I bought so now I'm stuck with trying to make it work the best I can.

I want to somehow incorporate a RDSB in the set-up, but I'm not too sure how it is going to work without problems being caused by detritus build-up because of the way that the system is set up. The refugium is made by a company called Pro Clear Aquatics... it is made from Acrylic.

So frustrated with this project haha... its seriously been almost 6 months in the making and it feels like I just keep running into problem after problem with one thing or the other.

[mbbuna]

is it one of these?

http://www.proclearaquatics.com/mud_sump.html

these types are setup to run like the eco-systems (skimmerless)

you could always get a 10g/20g tank drilled and place that before this sump and put the skimmer in there. and put the DSB in the fuge part

[chrisdamage]

I'm going to need to do some brainstorming! haha