Mobile Bay Reef Keepers

Anyone that has been in my fish room, please help, I need your ideas.
I need a frag/refugium tank very badly. I am thinking about a shallow cube or a shallow 75 G for maximum bottom area. I need to install this and plumb it into my main system.

Given the limited space in my fish room, I need any suggestions as to how I can accomplish this.

Thanks beforehand,
John

I sure would like pictures of that fish room....hint hint. It would help to be able to look at it and then make suggestions. If doing a refugium I would really try to do gravity feed.

? How the heck could you do a gravity refugium in there hang if from chains??

Amyjoe wrote:? How the heck could you do a gravity refugium in there hang if from chains??

Amy has an excellent point, a gravity-fed refuge would have to be what, 20 feet in the air

The only space I saw was over to the left of the stand in front of the brute cans. It would mean replumbing your sump, but what if you went with a taller and less long sump.. maybe a custom job, or larg rubbermaid container to the left of the stand along the wall , and placed a refugium where your sump is. I would think you would need to access the refugium more than the sump since you are just using the sump for a place to put your monster skimmer. You could mount hanging lights under your aquarium to shine on the refugium. With the amount of space you have there you could conceviably even put a refugium and a grow out tank there.

Then again.. the way your setup is.. you would probably come up with something much better than I ever could anyways Heck, just plumb the sink and mount a light above it

Kevin: These pictures don't really do justice to the elaborate setup, but the ones I took of the equipment room, etc are here: http://bmilam.access400.net/mbrk-9-27-03/

I agree with Brandon. If you moved your pumps you could put a cube there. If you raized it higher you could route an overflow to fill the prop tank and have an overflow to the sump that is gravity fed. No extra pumps needed.

Scott.. This is something I have thought about for myself.... But what do you think of a prop tank fed from the refugium. You could use a Y pipe and 2 valves to have two separate overflow adjustments, one for the sump and one for the refugium. Anyways.. if the prop tank is fed from the refugium, you could put some peppermint shrimp in the refugium and the corals would benefit from the shrimp spawn. I guess the smaller copepods would do the same. Would be a neat place for a mandarin if their were lots-o-pods. I'm sure some pods/shrimp fry would make their way back into the tank also.

Or would it be better to have water directly from the display for the prop tank??

Scott wrote:I agree with Brandon. If you moved your pumps you could put a cube there. If you raized it higher you could route an overflow to fill the prop tank and have an overflow to the sump that is gravity fed. No extra pumps needed.

Space there is very limited, I would have to go with a very small tank, or completely move the sump to the floor, That would mean more head pressure for my main return pump. Might be feasible. Just need a bigger pump. I think Sequence makes those huge pressure pumps.

Will see

John

John,
What are the dimentions of the corner where your pumps are now?

Brandon,
If I had the room that is exactly what I would do. The larvae from pods and shrimp would feed the corals.

I have to get back to you on the dimensions, but it is mighty small, plus no additional space for lighting.