Elbeau Posted October 16, 2007 Share Posted October 16, 2007 I have two tanks right now. One at home and one on my desk at work. The one at work has a refugium I want to talk about. At my last job (in Las Vegas) I set up a little 6-gallon Eclipse tank as a nano reef right on my cubicle desk (don't try this unless you have a cool boss). I only stocked it with soft corals and reef-safe fish, and it did great for the three years I worked there. When I got another job my boss wasn't nearly cool enough for me to even ask if I could move in a tank, so my wife inherited all my stuff for her tank at home. Good fortune struck this year when our company's board of directors ousted my old boss and moved the whole operation to Austin - Hense I'm now an ARC member My new boss here is quite cool, so I quickly set up another tank similar to my old one. I did the Eclipse 6 again, not because I think it's the best tank design, but because it really is low maintenance and quiet...and just because it worked last time. Both of these tanks had the same main problem...me...I habitually overstock, resulting in high nitrate levels. In my old tank this meant I had to do very frequent water changes. My new tank went through the initial amonia and nitrite cycles as expected, but when they were finished, I found myself with obsurdly high nitrate levels again. Now, protein skimming would be a great solution, but this is still a fairly quiet office (except when my boss sneaks up behind me with his megaphone), so a gurgling protein skimmer really wouldn't work. So I decided to take my first stab at a refugium. Aquatek was IMMENSLY helpful in fitting me into a little 2 1/2 gallon glass aquarium for the fuge. The aquarium tucked away nicely beside the Eclipse, almost out of sight, but still visible enough to enjoy watching the refugium wildlife. Keeping the water flowing between tanks was the obvious challenge here, but my solution is working quite well so far. To make water flow between the tank and the fuge, I first installed a 3/4" siphon hose between the two tanks. With the hose filled with water, it keeps the two tanks level with each other. Then, to get a little water movement through the fuge, I simply attached a small air hose to the outlet (you know, the little air port that allows you to squirt bubbles using the suction the outlet produces) of my small powehead that I put in the eclipse. I filled the air hose with water and put it in my fuge, and viola...small but consistent water movement between the tanks. Now, using siphons you have the obvious danger of losing siphon, and flooding one of the tanks. This danger is mitigated by simply putting the siphon inlet and the air hose inlet just below the water surface. This way, if I lose siphon, only a small amount of water can flow into the Eclipse. I stocked the fuge with a bunch of Cheato, then a large variation of live substrates that the local stores were very helpful in providing at little, and sometimes NO cost, as well as some substrates that I ordered online, making a nice "stew" of different stuff. I put in some nice mini-compacts for lighting and the Cheato loves it. It has been running flawlessly for 1 1/2 months now and WOW!!!! There is life everywhere. It is teaming with copopods, little shrimp, micro stars, worms (some good, some bad), and wonderful little things that look like small squid or jellyfish or something. They're just too small to really identify. I've had tanks before and loved to look at the small life in the substrate, but I NEVER though so much could live in so small a place. There are little buggers EVERYWHERE...and the siphon tube allows them to wander into the stocked tank all the time. In fact, you can sit there and watch for a few minutes, and sure enough, something will wander right out of that tube. Not only this, but my nitrates and phosphates have dropped to almost indetectible levels - in an overstocked nano with no skimming. I highly recommend a small fuge for a nano reef. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KarenM Posted October 16, 2007 Share Posted October 16, 2007 Cool! I'll be doing my first fuge with this new tank. I did have a 1 gal "pod tank" until last week. the air pump got unplugged for a day or 2 and everything in there died. Once I get all this new stuff up and running I'm going to try pods again. BTW - you have a really cool boss. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Headless_donkey Posted October 16, 2007 Share Posted October 16, 2007 Sounds great. I put a fuge on a 3 gallon and had the exact same results. It works and I am glad there is another believer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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