Finally Got My Fuge Online!!

[starrfish]

This is a HUGE step for me. I was battling nitrates and phosphates in my 75 - now I finally have a fuge! I am so thrilled. I'm going a little "against the grain" with this fuge. It's not a typical slow motion, pod generating tank.
Au contraire - it's a high flow, chaeto turning, nutrient export machine! I have an Eheim 1260 powering it (I will upgrade to something larger in the future). I have a couple hundred pounds of LR in my sump which is low flow, so that is where I'll grow my pods. The fuge is strictly for nutrient export. It's my old 75g tank put to great use. I am using Marc Levenson's recommendation on lighting. They are 5100K floodlights which I had to special order from an on-line store. Here's a pic of the fuge...

 

[starrfish]

Here's a pic of the box of the lights (I have two of them over the 75)....

 

[seasno]

Nice job Daire....I would think with the sand and rock in that fuge you would still end up with a healthy stock of pods.....cool bulbs too!

 

[One Eye]

The tank looks great. You'll still get plenty of pods as long as there's no predators.
From what I understand, longer contact time with the cheato will reduce nutients better. I have alot of flow inside my fuge, but slow going into and out from the fuge allowing the water to be churned around in the fuge but the turn over rate is only about 4X an hour. When we were at Atlantis Aquarium they gave us a behind the scenes tour. They showed us a cheato "reactor". 4' clear tube about 12" diameter. lights all around the outside. They have power heads inside moving the water through the cheato rapidly but they have a very slow pump feeding the reactor. They said that detectable nutrients are 75% lower coming out than going in.

 

[aweeks95]

those are cool specs on the nutrient reduction.....did you get a brochure that has a pic of the reactor? maybe you could scan it and post it.......or something like it.....that would be good for some one to try to copy, just a tube with cheato and lights....instead of an entire tank. sounds like a good conversation piece. anyone know where i can get some 12" dia. acrylic tube?

 

[Piscevore]

mcmaster and carr
or savko.com

 

[starrfish]

those are cool specs on the nutrient reduction.....did you get a brochure that has a pic of the reactor? maybe you could scan it and post it.......or something like it.....that would be good for some one to try to copy, just a tube with cheato and lights....instead of an entire tank. sounds like a good conversation piece. anyone know where i can get some 12" dia. acrylic tube?

There really isn't a reactor - it's just a pump with some pvc piping that is directed at the middle/lower portion of the tank to keep the chaeto turning. I originally saw the idea on RC - there was a whole thread on high flow refugiums. I think Calfo suggested making an acrylic "ramp" under the outflows from the pump to create a wave action. I couldn't get that to work so I played around with it (for days) and came up with my own solution. It seems to be working great - the chaeto is in constant motion. The idea is the more the chaeto "turns", the faster it grows, and the more nutrient export you get. Completely opposite the traditional low flow fuge idea.