Ideas for a Sump and Refugium for a nano

[KiLaGo]

I want to put a sump/refugium on my 29gl biocube. I can fit a cube tank measuring up to 18 x 18 in the stand, but I have not had any luck finding anything that isn't expensive.

I had a thought today that maybe I could get a used 14 or 20 gallon nano and stick it underneath. Has anyone tried this or see any issues with doing so. I could buy some acrylic and cut it with a utility knife to make the water flow through the chambers and work as needed. One thought is that I could have the water flow into the middle chamber from the main tank (I seal off chamber 2 from chamber 3 with plastic). Water then flows out of chamber 2, into chamber 1, and then into the main tank. I set up a refuguim in the main tank, and then drill holes through the wall into chamber two to get the appropriate balance between the two tanks.

I bought a media basket from inTank and I am running purigen and chemi-pure in it, so I don't know if I really need any more filtration. I guess my main purpose in adding this would be to have a larger refugium and more importantly increase the amount of water in the system.

Has anyone done something similar or have any thoughts or inputs as to what I should do.

 

[KiLaGo]

Thoughts anyone? I am newer at this and just starting to get everything with maintaining a reef figured out. If my idea is dumb, please tell me so I don't waste my time or money. I won't feel offended if you tell me it's a bad idea.

I have been having trouble trying to find a tank that would fit in my biocube stand so I thought maybe I could stick a smaller used biocube in it and make it work, and almost have two tanks displayed, one on the top and one right below it.

 

[FishBeard]

Honestly I wouldn't waste the money, if you are "new" and this is your first reef, if you are like everyone else, the nano is going to take a backseat to or completely replaced by a bigger tank in no time. I have been running a 14 gallon BioCube with nothing more than filter floss, chemi-pure and purigen, with bi-weekly 2-3 gallon water changes and the thing is doing great. I think adding an external sump/fuge is unnecessary in my experience so far. Why not just add chaeto and a grow light to the middle chamber along with your chemical filters and call it a day? Lots of people have done that successfully, and you dont have to go overboard like you are trying to do.

 

[KiLaGo]

I do have chaeto in the middle chamber with a 6 watt submersible light, but I also have the "InTank" media basket in chamber two as well, so it only leaves a small part for the chaeto. My tank also seems to run hot. I took off the uv sterilizer and put in a smaller watt powerhead hoping that would cause the temperature to run lower. I have a small fan I run constantly on the tank to keep the temp at 79 or lower. If I turn the fan off it climbs to above 82 and some of my coral starts to close up. I keep my house temp at 73 during the day and 70 at night. I get a lot of evaporation loss from the fan and some days it seems like I lose a lot of water and the chaeto gets exposed to air and then that portion turns brown. Some weeks it seems like I have to top off every day, other weeks it's every other day.

I also have a fair amount of live rock in the tank which takes up space, so while I have a 29 gallon tank, it probably only holds what, 22 to 25 gallons of water? I don't know. I was hoping more water would help balance out the temperature and provider a better growing area for the chaeto. As you noted, I do eventually want a larger tank, but it's going to take me some time to get enough goodwill credits with my wife to get approval for the investment because these things are hogs.

Overall, since I installed the intank media basket and refuguim my water has tested fine using the API test kit. My trumpet coral, frogspawn, and acans seems to be growing fine. I have 8 different types of zoas, such as eagle eyes, lunar, magicians, and rainbows or something. None of them grow. I have had the magicians for 3 or 4 months, no new buds. The lunar, two months, a little bud, but it hasn't grown in a month. I've tried medium and low placements. Nothing. I thought maybe if I increased by water volume and stability of the system by doing so, I might have better growth, but I don't know. i just wish I could get a bigger tank, but I have a year or two to go before I get "approval".

 

[lunacris]

I also agree with don't waste ur money since u would likely upgrade if still in hobby. I also have ha little luck with zoas. When do u run your lights. I run mine on a schedule that suits me instead of turning on in morning I run mine at night so it is a bit cooler in home.

 

[scotty]

The fact that you didn't say I went for a nano for space constraints tells m/e you definately want to ungrade in the future. You are really on the maxed out end for an aio, and you bought an aio so you wouldn't have the headache of figuring out a filtration diagram. I say save the money for the next upgrade, you've done what you can. And the biocubes seem to run hot.

 

[poidog]

Don't bother. I've been running an AIO 24g nano cube for 3 yrs that is heavily SPS stocked and have been very successful. I'm now just upgrading to a 70g reef.