Hi everyone. I am fairly new to the reef hobby and would appreciate clarification on sumps vs. refugiums.
I will eventually be setting up a 60 gal reef tank with a sump around 20 gallons (or whatever I can get to fit into the cabinet). I have read about the benefits of refugiums and see that many people make a refugium out of their sump, resulting in a sump/refugium combination. My question: Is a refugium just a modified sump, or do some people use a completely separate tank (apart from the sump) for this? What is ideal?
Secondly, if a sump/refugium combination is best, would a 20 gallon sump tank be big enough for this?
I have been really enjoying this site since I discovered it and very much appreciate the help.
Taryn
well, lets put it this way.
a sump is a tank that ise used simply to increase water volume (which ads to stability) and provide a place to hide away skimmers, heaters and other equipment.
a refugium is a bit more complicated, but in its basic terms, its a safe haven where you can grow/raise things tat would normally get eaten in your main tank. things like pods, and macro algae. pods get send to the tank via the return pump and are great for clean up and fish food for certain fish. and macro algae is great for nutrient export
if you check out my tank journal, you can see my old sumpfugium (sump/fuge) and my new refugium that i just setup
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Welcom to the forum and the hobby. I am new as well. Here is a picture of my sump and refugium that I just set up. I have two seperate containers. I used rubbermaid style containers to do the job becasue they are cheap and do just what I need them to do. The sump is on the left. It hold my protien skimmer, my return pump, and my heater. Eventually, I am going to add a small pump to pass water to a uv steralizer and also a float switch for an auto top off system. The refugium is on the right. The water is murky right now because I just have a little live rock in there. In the newxt few days I am going to add a good sandbed, more live rock, and a 40 watt NO (normal output) fluorescent light over it. Here is the pic:
Water from the main display comes into the sump and the refugium at the same time. I put a tee in the line and on each side of the tee there is a valve that allows me to control the rate of water going into the sump and into the refugium. The water from the refugium reaches a certain level and then spills into a gravity drain which fows into the sump on the left. That is why my refugium is on a little stand. It allows the water to fall nicely into the sump. If you look closely, you can see the pipe trveling from the refugium to the sump. In my sump, I am going to grow some macro algae. I hope this helps.
__________________ - Eddy
"Corals require an aquarium, seawater at the right temperature and salinity, waterf flow, light, food, bicarbonate/buffer, and calcium. Period. No other equipment, apparatus, magic potions, pills, voodoo, prayer, or other sacrafices are necessary." -Eric Borneman
yep, for my situation, it allowed me to have total control over the amount of flow that is going through the refugium at any time. Most people will say that its good to have a slow rate of water going through the refugium. You can have both your sump and your refugium together and still control the flow into each, this systm just worked better for the space that I had under my tank.
__________________ - Eddy
"Corals require an aquarium, seawater at the right temperature and salinity, waterf flow, light, food, bicarbonate/buffer, and calcium. Period. No other equipment, apparatus, magic potions, pills, voodoo, prayer, or other sacrafices are necessary." -Eric Borneman
I actually use both. I have a 75 and 65 that are hooked together. The 75 is my main tank with a pump in the overflow to pump it to the 65g. The 65 then drains to a fuge with cryptic zone then gravity feed to the sump. On the main 75 there is also a drain to the sump.
The main reason for separating the two was that I wanted a bigger fuge that would accomidate a cryptic zone - so I used a 20g, I could also controll a slower flow through it. With the sump, I am pushing alot of water and wanted to make sure I did not have microbubbles returing to the tank, plus plenty of room for my skimmer and all it mods. By using a long 30g sump I get rid of all the microbubbles. I also set up my phosban and GAC reactor in the sump.
Ideally, you should use what you need. If you just would like to increase your water-volume and a place to put stuff, all you need is the sump. If you plan on keeping species with special needs such as a Mandarin Goby that needs food, you probably need a refugium. Really there isn't that much difference, the biggest being that if you want to grow algae, than you need a light.
Hi Taryn, welcome to TR. I see buy your profile you are in the planning phase of your reef tank. The best thing you've done so far is to join TR and began asking questions. We are here to help you. You will find a wide diversity of opinions among members but most of our systems support reef life. It will be up to you to pick and choose between the different styles of reef keeping.
When I set up my 135 reef 1 1/2 years ago I bought a wet/dry trickle filter, not because that is what I wanted but, because I didn't want to wait 4 to 6 weeks for a custom sump/refugium. Everyone here, I believe, will tell you not to go with a wet/dry filter, me included!!! I had a different plan in mind. I knew I could get rid of the bio balls associated with a W/D and replace them with live rock (LR), which I did. Here's a pic of the now converted W/D to a sump/refugium.
The pic above shows the sump/refugium just after plumbing it into the system.
This pic is right after turning the system on. I tried an experiment with the different layers of substrate. The chocolate colored bottom layer is Walt Smith's Fiji Mud, the white layer is Aragonite sand and the tan layer is WS's Fiji Gold. You can grow various macro algae in the sump/refugium for nutrient export. I chose chaetomorpha (? spell) and it does fine.
I also use a DSB of Aragonite sand about 5" in the display tank, pictured below.
I hope this helped your understanding of the sump/refugium situation. You can get much more creative than me but remember simple is usually easiest.
Dick
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Reaching my 70th BD, I realize that I cannot help but grow old. However, I refuse to grow up!!! My wife would tell you, "He may be 70 but, He's going on 17". Life is wonderful with a woman like that.
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