Difference in Sumps Wet/Dry vrs refugium ?'s
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braydonosu
Member
A lot of times a wet/dry sump is a smaller tank that has an in-feed from the tank that goes over bio balls or some sort of bio media. Most of the media is not submerged, hence the dry part. There are a lot of sumps that integrate a refugium in them, just a small compartment between the bio media and the pump compartment. I actually built my own sump out of a 20 high and some acrylic. I found the 50$ spent on this to be better than the 200$ for a sump from a fish store. And yes, you can put a protein skimmer on both types.
tarball
Member
Is there a site that explains in detail the difference between the 2. details on building them & how they remove bacteria & condition the water.
I also have concerns about overflow from the sump.
I am a bit reserved about a sump & refugium because I don't completely understand.
I checked with my LFS, They had a wet/dry with a skimmer & bio-balls for $350 bucks. plus i had to buy a pump.
Didn't seem like a good deal to me.
I would rather save the money & build a sump refugium,
but I feel that's it's really important to understand what I'm doing before trying...
I also have concerns about overflow from the sump.
I am a bit reserved about a sump & refugium because I don't completely understand.
I checked with my LFS, They had a wet/dry with a skimmer & bio-balls for $350 bucks. plus i had to buy a pump.
Didn't seem like a good deal to me.
I would rather save the money & build a sump refugium,
but I feel that's it's really important to understand what I'm doing before trying...
braydonosu
Member
aquatraders.com is where i got the overflow, pump, and protein skimmer for less than 75$. I have not found a site that explains everything very well, so I can tell you what I know. A refugium employes a deep sand bed (about 4" or more) where anaerobic bacteria lives in the stagnate conditions at the bottom of the sand (it converts nitrate to nitrogen gas that easily removes itself through gas exchange at the surface), I use a 2" layer of crushed coral, then a 2" layer of live sand. Also in the fuge, I employ macroalgae, it helps soak up excess nutrients, provides perfect living conditions for pods, and also supplies a harvesting area for fresh food for tangs. As far as overflowing the sump, as long as you only put enough water in the sump to get it to a level that you want it will not overflow. The pump will pump an amount into the tank, and then the overflow will take the same amount out. Google search and maybe you can get more help. If you look at that 350$ sump, you can get an idea of how your setup should look. I built one for a friend, and also for a guy that employed me to set up a tank for him, and trust me, practice makes perfect
stanlalee
Active Member
in a nutshell wet dry's are designed to process high amounts of ammonia and refugiums (macro or deep sand bed) are designed to process high amounts of nitrates. fish only set ups emphasize quick ammonia break down and wet dry's are ideal if the bioload is high. reefs require quick nitrate removal and refugiums are ideal. That is why reefs are usually kept with a low fish/bioload, typical fuge filtration can not handle the bioload (ammonia breakdown) of a wet dry. only reason wet drys are out of favor for reefs is because the end result of all that ammonia processing are nitrates (bad for reefs, not really a problem for fish only set ups).