Reef Central Online Community - View Single Post - Help me think through this sump modification and frag tank options

BrettDS · 03/02/2018, 10:10 PM

When I designed and built my 220G reef I also designed and built a 100G sump that looks like this:

(Well, it did look like that, but now it’s covered with 2 years worth of algae and salt creep[emoji6] ). But my original thought for the two large sections in the middle were that I could use the back one as a fuge and the front one as a frag tank. I put a radion XR15 Pro over them for lighting.

Unfortunately it hasn’t really worked out as well as I had hoped. I’ve had a bit of a hard time growing cheato or any macro algae in the fuge section, likely because the lighting spectrum that’s ideal for the corals in the frag tank is not ideal for the algae. Additionally I’ve struggled with nuisance algae in the frag tank section. Because it’s part of the sump I haven’t really been able to add any sort of a cleanup crew because there’s no way to keep them contained in the frag tank section.

However, because I didn’t really have any other place to put a frag tank and I really don’t like seeing frags in the display tank I’ve been dealing with what I have. However, tonight I had an idea.

There is a cabinet to the left of the sump here:

Originally my plan was to put a Quarantine tank in that space, but I have since realized that that isn’t ideal as I don’t want the QT to be that close to my display system because contaminated water could splash from the QT to the display system.

So now I’m thinking that maybe I’ll just remove the center divider in the sump and turn the two large center sections into one large refugium. That will give me more fuge space, which certainly isn’t a bad thing and I can also get one of the new Kessil grow lights or another light that’s ideal for growing algae.

In the cabinet to the left I can put a small frag tank and move the XR15 over to it. Since that will be a separate tank I can put a clean up crew and/or a couple of small fish to help with the nuisance algae. Plus adding an additional tank to the system will increase the total water capacity of the system which is always a good thing.

So what do you think of this plan? Anything I’m missing or other options that might work better?

The only concern that I have that I’ll need to work through is the fact that the frag tank will not be significantly higher than the sump. I’m thinking that the water line of the frag tank may only be 4 or 5 inches above the water line in the sump and I’m a little bit afraid that that might not be enough height to allow gravity to move the water from the frag tank to the sump fast enough. Depending on the tank I choose for the frag tank and whether I try to build something to put it on to raise it up a bit I may be able to get the water line 10 or 12 inches above the water line in the sump, but it’s still not a huge difference. Do you think that it will still work?

Thanks for any thoughts,
Brett

03/02/2018, 10:10 PM	#1
BrettDS Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: Orlando Posts: 1,109	Help me think through this sump modification and frag tank options When I designed and built my 220G reef I also designed and built a 100G sump that looks like this: (Well, it did look like that, but now it’s covered with 2 years worth of algae and salt creep[emoji6] ). But my original thought for the two large sections in the middle were that I could use the back one as a fuge and the front one as a frag tank. I put a radion XR15 Pro over them for lighting. Unfortunately it hasn’t really worked out as well as I had hoped. I’ve had a bit of a hard time growing cheato or any macro algae in the fuge section, likely because the lighting spectrum that’s ideal for the corals in the frag tank is not ideal for the algae. Additionally I’ve struggled with nuisance algae in the frag tank section. Because it’s part of the sump I haven’t really been able to add any sort of a cleanup crew because there’s no way to keep them contained in the frag tank section. However, because I didn’t really have any other place to put a frag tank and I really don’t like seeing frags in the display tank I’ve been dealing with what I have. However, tonight I had an idea. There is a cabinet to the left of the sump here: Originally my plan was to put a Quarantine tank in that space, but I have since realized that that isn’t ideal as I don’t want the QT to be that close to my display system because contaminated water could splash from the QT to the display system. So now I’m thinking that maybe I’ll just remove the center divider in the sump and turn the two large center sections into one large refugium. That will give me more fuge space, which certainly isn’t a bad thing and I can also get one of the new Kessil grow lights or another light that’s ideal for growing algae. In the cabinet to the left I can put a small frag tank and move the XR15 over to it. Since that will be a separate tank I can put a clean up crew and/or a couple of small fish to help with the nuisance algae. Plus adding an additional tank to the system will increase the total water capacity of the system which is always a good thing. So what do you think of this plan? Anything I’m missing or other options that might work better? The only concern that I have that I’ll need to work through is the fact that the frag tank will not be significantly higher than the sump. I’m thinking that the water line of the frag tank may only be 4 or 5 inches above the water line in the sump and I’m a little bit afraid that that might not be enough height to allow gravity to move the water from the frag tank to the sump fast enough. Depending on the tank I choose for the frag tank and whether I try to build something to put it on to raise it up a bit I may be able to get the water line 10 or 12 inches above the water line in the sump, but it’s still not a huge difference. Do you think that it will still work? Thanks for any thoughts, Brett Last edited by BrettDS; 03/02/2018 at 10:19 PM.