sump/refugium

[horn1004]

Well, it's about time to do some holiday shopping, for MYSELF!!! I start real early, and I've pretty much got everybody out of the way, so I figured I'd get some goodies for myself. I've already picked out new lighting. I'm getting 2 175w metal halides to go with the 144w pc's I've got right now. That's a big difference on a 46gal. I'm going from 3 watts per gallon to 10 per gallon. The other thing I'm thinking about adding is a refugium. This is the hard part. I've got a custom made stand with a 10 gal sump in it. I was thinking about swapping the 10 gal with a 20L and adding a refugium in it but I can't squeeze the 20 in. So this is what I'm thinking about. I'm thinking about buying another 10 gal and making it into a refugium. I'll slide the sump over and place the refugium beside it. As far as water flow to and from, that's the part I'm having trouble with. How should I go about getting water to and from the refugium? Any advice will be greatly appreciated and if you have pics or links to pics I'd love to have those also.

[fdm]

The easiest refugium setup for your situation would be, have the 10g refugium tank drilled for a 1" bulkhead a few inches down from the top. Have it drilled on one of the short sides. Then build a small platform that will raise it a couple of inches over your sump. Just high enough that the drilled hole is above the top of the sump.

Then plop a small powerhead (~100gph or less) into the sump and put the output of the powerhead into the refugium. Preferably on the far side of the refugium, away from the outlet. Plumb a short piece of pipe into the bulkhead in the refugium so that the output it placed where you want it in your sump, and you're done.

So essentially you will pump water from your sump into your refugium and that will overflow back into your sump through the drilled hole.