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 |  | A Refugium is an excellent addition to any Reef Tank. It can be used to quarantine new or bullying fish, increase the water volume of your system or populate flora and fauna away from predation by animals in the main tank. I desired a Refugium for the latter two reasons because I am working with a small tank and I desired to support a Mandarin Fish. In order for fauna to survive transmission to the main tank the Refugium should use a gravity-fed return to the main tank rather than subject them to the pressure and beating of a pump. I also chose a hang-on model because of my lack of available space in the sump. |
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Outlet plumbing | 
Inlet plumbing |
Once I had my plans in place I ordered 1/4" Lucite acrylic to be precut from my local plastics manufacturing facility for less than $40. I have no workshop of any kind so I had the plastics company make all of the cuts for me. If you have a nice band saw or table saw you could do the cutting yourself. Then I went to a very good hardware store and spent almost 2 hours, with plans in-hand, trying to find the right plumbing to do the job. The trickiest part was finding the pieces that would allow a good seal on either side of the acrylic. I used acrylic cement to assemble the Refugium and sealed it with aquarium silicone adhesive. |
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|   The PVC piping bears most of the weight but, following the CPR example, I added three triangular pieces for additional support. There is some flex when filled with water but since this unit is held between the tank and the wall with little additional clearance I had no need for a center support. This unit externally measures 22½" long x 12" tall x 4½" deep. Filled with 3 lbs of sand and 4 lbs of Live Rock this holds about 4½ gallons. I set the length and depth to match a 15-gallon light hood that I had. |
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| | Within the first weeks I have seen several amphipods, copepods covering the walls, two 2" bristle worms, a large Aiptasia and various other life forms. I will let these organisms flourish here adding to the biodiversity of my system. I also feed them sparingly every other day with shrimp pellet food (2-3 pellets broken in thirds). The right-hand draining chamber is very useful for steadily releasing food into the main tank. Placing cubes of frozen food here, the turbulence and warm water steadily release single, defrosted brine shrimp into the tank. Since the output tube and neighboring Power Sweep unit blow water down the entire reef section the food is distributed evenly to the invertebrates as well as the fish. |
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Here is the tank with the black background dropped down to show the completed and filled Refugium. I kept it this way for a time to monitor the flora and fauna growing here.)
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