sump/refugium

[horn1004]

Well, it's about time to do some Christmas 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 some 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.

 

[horn1004]

^

 

[bradwent]

Matt,

I have thought about this same idea. I want to expand my sump from a gutted wet/dry to a 20L. Problem is the same, I would have to tear down the tank to put the 20L through the top of the stand. I will not tear down my tank again since I just did that last weekend to add a DSB, what a stressful pain...

My thought was to get (2) 10 gal and then drill (2) 1 3/4" (or bigger)holes on each tank for 1" bulkhead fittings. Make sure the holes match up, between the 2 tanks, to connect them with plumbing. I would imagine that the bulkhead fittings should be available threaded so you could thread the bulkhead fittings to the plumbing and then connect the bulkheads to the tanks. I am sure someone has done this and would like to know if this would be a bad idea before implementing this. The reason I would suggest 2 holes is for backup incase 1 hole gets restricted.