New Refugium

[johniii]

So i made a remote refugium out of a 4 gallon foodsafe container. It has and ultra low flow rate and took my nitrates from 15ppm to 0ppm in two days. I currently do not have any sand in it. My question is do I need sand in there or am i ok to run without it? The macro is Cheato.

 

[rdnelson]

I have sand in mine but one of the my most trusted LFS says there is no need. She actually prefers not to have sand in it so it doesn't trap nasties.

 

[eagle9252]

I added a remote sump last weekend. The main reason I did this was because I did not have room to run the PS and filter soc in the sump. My plan was to add another PS in it. After adding the remote sump and putting the 1 PS in it I decided to try it without the soc. I still have the sponge on the pump.
How did you do your pipes? I only have 1 drain currently. I think I'm going to rebuild the HOB OF due to wanting more flow. The bulkhead on the side of the remote sump seams to work better and more quite than coming from the bottom.

 

[johniii]

Bullheaded a tee on the drain. Ball valve only on the fuge feed to slow down flow. Then fuge gravity drains to the normal sump. Drain and fuge are higher than the sump so in an outage sump holds water and no overflow issues.

Edit: It probably flows 50 gph max can turn up to about 300gph but I get real good growth at low flow.