Refugium - Surge

[JBendel]

This may not be the most complicated DIY, but I have 20 gallon over the tank fuge and was having circulation issues because the cheato and such have grown so large.

Added one Right angle and 2" of straight PVC to the inside through hole and turned it into a Carlson Siphon surge. It's surging ~ 5 gallons into my 30 gallon tank ... the fuge has been full of pods, so hopefully a good transfer to the main tank without losing the breeding stock.

 

[JohnK]

Hey, cool idea. How's the micro bubble situation?

I might just have to try that with my ref...

 

[marco67]

I've built them, (somewhere here there's a pic of me at the sept 03 clam bake playing with the idea on a white board)
IMO if you set it up like a straight surge from a refuge it won't be long before the fuge can not regenerate itself and you just have a surge. Instead what I like is the fuge flowing into/ feeding a separate surge compartment. I've done this before by using one tank and dividing it into 2/3 refuge and 1/3 surge.
Bubbles: that's a whole separate long thread.....

 

[~Flighty~]

Marc, can you expand on what you mean by not regenerating itself?

 

[smcnally]

I think he means that the surge causes so many critters to wash out into the main tank that they can't populate fast enough to keep up.

 

[JBendel]

Just to be clear ... this is a very gentle surge ... this isn't the toilet flapper surge .... it's 3/4" in the tank and a 1 - 1/4" out. I calculate it moves 4 gallons in 60 seconds. ... not exactly Niagara Falls, and takes a little while to build back up. For my system ... it seems to produce a lot better flow in the Fuge which had dead spots.

I ran it over night for the first time and in the morning there were still lots of full size and tiny (head of a pin) pods all swiming around ... there is 8" of water below the low point of the surge.

Not much of a bubble problem .. the Return is submerge in the main tank. The Fuge is not very high ... fuge bottom is at the same level as the top of the tank.

The plan is to mod the other through hole into an emergency drain and adjust the autotop off ... and if I find I don't like it ... it easy to remove.

Here's a pic ..

 

[marco67]

I think he means that the surge causes so many critters to wash out into the main tank that they can't populate fast enough to keep up.

Exactly

From the pics I see this is a non issue here looks like you are only pulling the level down a few inches, good thingking on the overfloww also.