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Next Project. Gravity Fed Refugium.

Started by mysterysnail, March 09, 2016, 09:58:52 AM

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mysterysnail

Hey Folks,

So my next project, as the title says, will be to add a 20 gallon gravity fed fuge to my system. The purpose will be to have a nicely designed place for pods, worms, and macro to live.

Having read LOTS, I still have a few opinion questions I'd love help with.

First - flow
I would like to keep it as low flow as possible within reason. I plan to add a carbon & GFO section at the end to polish the water and remove phosphates. I know I can do reactors for this purpose but I am a strong believer of multi purpose things. If the flow rate is low enough it shouldn't pulverise the GFO and I believe would work extremely well. The other upside to the low flow is I can use the fuge as a sediment bed. the critters and sandsifters I plan to add should help with removing the sediment.
How much flow is too much for this purpose?

Second - Lights........ the bane of my existence.
So the always argued and extremely bias topic. I want lights to grow the macro and mangroves, but no coral would be going in this tank, whats the cheapest lights I can get away with????  This will be a 20 gallon tall so would still need 12" penetration.

Third - Deep Sand Bed - Yay or Nay.
Again a highly debatable topic. I would like to have some sand bed... no bare tank as I don't like the look. deep sandbed to help export some nitrate/phosphate would be good, and I would have rooted plants and diggers in there to churn the sand.
Are there any downsides to this application?

Hopefully this will go well. I will most likely completely avoid the sump concept and go this way. I don't care enough about hiding the skimmer or heater and with a gravity fed system I save TONS in overflow boxes and high power return lines. Plus the wall the tank is on has an extra few feet on each side that's currently bare.

In any case thank you all for your continued advice and support.
Attached is a sketch of the planned layout.