Refugium question

[crzyfshygy]

Can I, or is it a good idea, to run a skimmer in the area as the pump on a refugium/ My skimmer hangs on the sump right now and can not add another sump for the Skimmer. I heard the skimmer will kill all the good things comming out of the return water area into the pump station

 

[farmboy]

I think you want to "feed" the fuge unskimmed tank water. The fuge (depending on your application) is going to remove nutrients like growing macro algae for example. Skimming in this app should get the left-overs.
Maybe you could use the skimmer pump to draw water FROM the fuge and return it to the display? :thinking:

 

[crzyfshygy]

This is what is confusing :notsure: Its all the same water going and comming from the same place. So wether or not it gets skimmed in the begining of the fuge or at the end of the fuge or even hanging from the tank or in another sump. It is still being skimmed. So i want to set up a fuge but my skimmer is on my sump and I have no other place to put it. I want the fuge in my cabinet so I do have limited space.
Some one said to me that the skimmer can not be in the fuge because you remove the good fuge stuff with the skimmer. CPR has a fuge with skimmer attatched so what is the difference.+

 

[jmick]

I would not place my skimmer in my fuge or down stream from it, if you have a macro algae in your fuge you are likely to skim plankton out and some of the smaller critters, which you don’t want to do (very counter productive). Ideally, you want to skim “raw” water and you want raw water to be fed into your fuge. But if you lack the space I highly recommend skimming the water before it goes into your fuge (baffle off the first section of the fuge for your skimmer).

 

[carshark]

no what I think he means is the water should not be skimmed prior to entering the fuge. makes sense, and is correct. the problem however, is that if the skimmer is drawing water from the fuge, it is pulling it faster than should out of a fuge. you would probably want the skimmer at the end of the water cycle through filtration. the macros, and other live filters contained in a fuge need that unpure unfiltered water(so to speak) from the tank first, thats what they live on, nitrates etc etc. the water then needs to go through your sump or wet dry. from there the water needs to run through a skimmer and return to the display. this is my understanding of a proper filtration. the fuge isnt neccessarily there to produce good water, its there to remove the bad..the fuge does not cultivate good water, rather is cleans nutrient rich water. so my idea of a good filtration would be gravity pushing water into a wet/dry or sump from the fuge which is pulled by gravity again from the main display. in turn to push from the wet/dry filtration chamber into a sump area, skimmed and returned to the main display.
I am not an expert on filtration it just seems to make the most sense to me...

 

[jmick]

A fuge is by no means going to pull all of the nutrients out of your water in a single pass and running your skimmer before the fuge should be fine (the skimmer isn’t going to pull everything in one pass either and will leave plenty for your fuge). It’s my understanding that running a skimmer in a fuge will pull microplankton, which isn’t good because the microplankton is desired in a reef tank.

 

[carshark]

so in that case, running a wet/dry or sump before the fuge? here is what confuses me about that. water does need to gradually move in and out of a fuge, otherwise it deems it useless. so if water is forced through a fuge via a skimmer from a seperate filtration device ie sump/wet dry. so where is your return? the pump that pushes the water from the fuge has to have enough force to get it back to the tank. so meanwhile the skimmer should be pulling water very quickly to effciently skim then it slows a bit through another filtration to eventually get into a fuge, to then fire back up quickly? the balance would be off.... and an overflow is almsot guaranteed

 

[jmick]

Fortunately, my set up isn’t like this one =) I use an overflow that I have tied off, 70% of the water from my overflow goes into my sump and the remaining water goes into my fuge. Note, my fuge tank is baffled into two sides. One side is my fuge which is roughly 80% of a 30gal and the remaining I use as my return to my main tank (also, my sump flows into this return). I have no worries about my system overflowing. I also use an Aqua-C Remora Pro so I don’t worry about putting it in my sump.

 

[carshark]

Originally Posted by Jmick
Fortunately, my set up isn’t like this one =) I use an overflow that I have tied off, 70% of the water from my overflow goes into my sump and the remaining water goes into my fuge. Note, my fuge tank is baffled into two sides. One side is my fuge which is roughly 80% of a 30gal and the remaining I use as my return to my main tank (also, my sump flows into this return). I have no worries about my system overflowing. I also use an Aqua-C Remora Pro so I don’t worry about putting it in my sump.

yeah understood. i guess when answering someone who may have an insump skimmer, it just made sense my way.. im not saying I am only correct, its just what i have come up with.

 

[jmick]

If your refugium tank is large enough, you could always baffle it in three parts and make the middle of it your refugium, the front part a compartment for your skimmer and the end compartment for your water return.

 

[carshark]

Originally Posted by Jmick
If your refugium tank is large enough, you could always baffle it in three parts and make the middle of it your refugium, the front part a compartment for your skimmer and the end compartment for your water return.

yeah not a bad idea....

 

[farmboy]

Ours is a 29 gallon baffled into 3 sections. The right is about 10 gallon fuge - the left is for the skimmer/heater and they both flow to the middle which is the return.
Bret, you will find the "tee" and ball valve to limit flow through the fuge section. Also a smaller valve/line to return some of the pump flow into the fuge to limit the water going back to the display. THis works nicer than just closing a valve in line with the pump. The pump doesn't work as hard, maybe. I used this valve to minimize the micro bubbles in the display.

 

[farmboy]

BTW the compartment on the right is anxiously awaiting the CHaeto macro algae from that famous auction site. (Anyday. . . :jumping: )