Using a reef ready overflow for a refugium - Anyone done this?

[tangman99]

I'm looking at the overflow in my 90 gallon reef ready tank. It has a durso standpipe and there are tons of very tiny feather dusters growing on the glass and some type of sponge. I was thinking about putting some type of macro algea in the overflow to act as a kind of refugium. Has anyone done this before and if so how does it work? It would be very easy to put a light on the side of the tank to provide light to the algea. I would need to put the algea under something to keep it from blocking the durso intake. Maybe and eggcrate cutout to fit.
Tangman

 

[broomer5]

I would not place macro algae in an external overflow box.
Risk of clogging up, or at least reducing the flow.
These things are made to flow "freely"

 

[broncofish]

Hey tangman I kind of do that but broomer is right. No macro in there, it does clog the drain, and grows way to quick with only 12 hours of light. I put LS, and LR rubble down there. Hows that durso working out, I am getting ready to do one this weekend? Right now I just have a really high pipe with a ball valve, but every now and again if I don't watch my water levels I get the dreaded sucking noise.

 

[broncofish]

And bigmac is right also I have a worm and pod population like you would not believe in my overflow box. I'll try to borrow a digital camera ang get some pics

 

[tangman99]

The durso was one of the best things I ever did to my tank. It made it extremely quiet. The biggest pain is getting the hole the right size to suck in the air.

 

[broncofish]

What is the height you set it for, did you put a ball valve in the middle in case you wanted to stop the flow, and did you just drill a hole in the endcap or did you do something fancy?

 

[tangman99]

Nothing fancy at all. I just used 1 1/4" in PVC and made it where the water level would be about 2" below the overflow. I drilled the hole in the end cap.
The big pain is you think you have the hole the right size and about 15 minutes later the water starts rising and falling until the water drops below the elbow and you get a toilet flush. When this happens, you need to make the hole bigger.
If you have a real powerful pump, it makes it that much harder. The first thing I did was pull the endcap off completely and left the top of the pipe completely open. It worked fine with no surging but was a little loud. This much air also makes the flow slower down the durso. If it works with no surging with the endcap off, you know you can get enough air in the pipe so it's just a matter of finding the sweetspot. If it surges with the endcap off you can't get enough air but this is rare.
I finally got it to a point where it was stable and drilled up one more size from there to be sure. Once it is stable, it does not matter if the hole is a little larger.
If you would like, I can post a picture of it when i get home so you can see the proper water level. It should be between half way and the top or about 3/4 up the horizontal pipe.
Let me know if you have any problems and I will try to help.
Tangman