sump/fuge for freshwater

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
On my idea for a sump I put bio-balls above the water and pot scrubbers below the water line.

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Even if I just lowered the refugium so the bio balls were not wet?

If you lower your refuge then you are loosing a lot of volume for no good reason.

I would nix the bio balls and go with a bag of ceramic media or sintered glass media under the filter floss and sponge if you want to stick with your original configuration.

Personally I am a really big fan of wet dry bio balls because of the huge air/water surface area they create for oxygenation and off gassing. This might not be an issue (it might even be counter productive) if your refugium is going to be full of plants. Plants feed off of the Co2 and give off O2. Off gassing CO2 with a wet/dry might impede your plant growth. I.e. forget the bio balls, go with submerged media and keep the refugium pretty tall.
 
I have actually built it yet. I'm still in the planning stages. My idea was that the bio balls do better on the wet dry part and the scrubby have a high surface area than bio balls. It doesn't hurt there cheaper too.

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If you just want plants for nitrate removal you could go with all floating plants. They tend to be low maintenance and excellent nitrate removers. Then you wouldn't have to worry about substrates or fertilizer tabs or anything.


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