berlin vs refugium

[Snelly40]

hey guys!!!

been a while... i have been up and down with my tank for a while now, but totally have the urge back and just ordered new LED lights and an awesome aquamaxx skimmer. I also made my life much easier by finally ordering a sump that i am happy with. I grabbed an Aqueon proflex model 4!! tons of space!!!

i am debating between a basic berlin system, filter, skimmer and return...

or as i have space in the 3rd chamber for my skimmer and return, i am thinking about a refugium. possibly DSB and cheato and what not,,, or maybe just cheato haha..

any advice as to which overall is better longterm...??

thanks guys!!

missed ya!!!

 

[DaveK]

What you want to do here is set up the sump as a berlin type sump. Then you want to get another tank and set that up as a refugium. Then in the new refugium, you can add all the items such as a DSB, macro algae ans so on.

There are several good reasons for doing this --

The refugium have a lot of interesting things going on in it. In this day and age, it's worthy of placing it next to your display tank.

You can isolate the refugium from the rest of the system. This can prove invaluable if you want to do something like remove a DSB or otherwise rebuild it.

The flow through a refugium should be fairly slow, compared to the rest of the filtration system. You can control this with a separate refugium. You can also feed the refugium with water from the main return, so that it doesn't become a dirt trap.

 

[StirCrayzy]

I like Dave's point of isolation, but if you don't have room for an extra tank, you can easily build in a bypass for the majority of flow to go around a built in refugium section.

 

[reefer gladness]

I used one of these sumps on my RSM tank a couple years back. It's designed to be used either way you have described so it's really up to you. In terms of maintenance the simple berlin setup is the easiest, followed by a bare-botton fuge with chaeto or similar. A fuge with rock and sand will need to be cleaned periodically.

I kept red mangroves and chaeto in the middle section. Tried rock rubble for awhile but it became a trap for nitrates.

If you are considering a refugium as a habitat for pods to reproduce just bear in mind the pods will need to travel past that mechanical filter sponge between the 2nd and 3rd chambers. If you take that sponge out the intakes on your skimmer and return pumps may become clogged (it happened to me anyway).

 

[Snelly40]

yah i unfortunately dont have room for a second tank DaveK, good idea but no room and gf would probably shoot me haha.

Reefer, thanks for the tips, pods are good but i'll probably leave that filter as some barrier before pumps, so may just use that section for some cheato and leave it bare bottom.. maybe i'l ljust fgure out a way to have my phosphate reactor dump back into that center section too... so much to think about haha...

 

[Snelly40]

ugh... ok now leaning towards more or the berlin, so sand no cheato and skimmer in the center so i can really manage the water level of it and have reactors in center also... seems cleaner