hello welcome back to yet another educational video series by yours truly New York steelo I know it's been a while since I've released my last episode but today we're gonna get busy here we're gonna start a two-part video series on how to set up a sump refugium and you know I'm gonna offer you guys some tips and tricks that you might pick up on and want to possibly incorporate them into your setup here now with this first part of the video we're going to cover this 90 gallons some perfume down below um part two of the video we're basically going to cover the 30 gallon annals hang on the back row future you don't want to miss the second part of this video series because I've used that thirty gallon nano as an experimentation tank I've done all kinds of things to it and when that hang on the back refugium has been through hell and back and I definitely want to touch up on what's gonna happen here in part two of the series so uh we're going to move on here quickly to the some perfusion down below before we do that though I wanted to mention that because I haven't uploaded a video recently a lot of people have been asking me well you know what happened to your system is it still alive and kicking absolutely you can see it here with your own eyes and for those of you who are unaware that I have a Facebook page um I'm going to put the link in the description now box down below I basically upload pictures almost on a daily basis and start discussions with my subscribers so if you go there and you like the Facebook and you follow me on Facebook you'll be able to be a more aware of what's going on with the system despite the fact that I you know I mean upload a video as fast as I normally do but we're going to start cooking here and we're going to move on down to the sump refugium down below here and what we're going to do is we're going to take a closer look at some of the changes that I've done here you're going to notice immediately that I don't have a deep sand bed anymore so stay tuned and let's take a closer look we will be right back okay so now that we quickly back here we have a better angle at the overall sump refugium I wanted to touch up on a couple of aspects regarding the overall setup and which ways you can choose to go to if you want to go ahead and set up a summer future down below inside understand in the way that you see it here now of course a lot of you have been following my videos know that I cover the details like no other so we've got a lot to cover here guys so sit back relax grab some popcorn if you can and let's get busy here we're going to start with the plumbing nama plumbing this is important because there's two wings that you can plumb up some perfume down below you can either use flexible tubing or you can use PVC and hard plumb the entire system now there's no wrong way for you to do that in other words you can't go wrong with each either or whether you use flexible tubing or a hard foam the system you will be successful however there are some pros and cons to each and every one of them I can honestly tell you that every single one of my systems that I've had in the past decade have been set up with flexible tubing and I'm gonna tell you why here on every other system that I've set up outside that's not my system I've done it in PVC and it's because it looks a lot nicer it looks a lot neater when your hard Paloma system however the reason why I've chosen a flexible tubing is basically there's pros and cons to each and every one of them I think using flexible tubing is a lot easier in some aspects okay number one it's a lot less expensive to use and going back and forth to Home Depot and picking up pieces here and there so you can hard plumb the system you know it's basically a lot less inexpensive so that's number one number two you tend to lose a lot more flow when your heart plumb the system due to back pressure than you would when you use flexible tubing every time your return pump shoots the water up and the water has to travel through these 90 degree elbows and turns and everything before it reaches up in the main display every time it goes through these turns these sharp turns the pump loses some pressure so you have a pump that's say for example 1,200 gallons per hour by the time the water reaches the top of the tank it will be diminished by several hundred gallons per hour so a 12 100 gallon per hour pump might end up giving you about 800 or 700 or even 600 gallons per hour whereas if you use flexible tubing you won't have as much turns and everything else and there will be a lot more flow available for the system number three number three is basically that if you want to make changes to the setup it's a lot more difficult to do when your heart plumb the tank that as opposed to removing the flexible tubing and just making the changes out rather quickly so there's those three top reasons why I tend to lean towards using flexible to be whether or not you decide to go once again I want to repeat this hard from the system or use flexible tubing you will be successful either way guys so the choice is yours now we're going to move on to talking about which sump refugium I decided to use you know refugium is better than no refugium of course the bigger it is the more effective it is going to work as a filtration system in this case I've used the trigger system some perfume modeled after the 36 s now in my case I contacted the company and have them you know make it longer so this one in particular is 36 inches long by 15 inches wide by 15 inches tall it is extremely important that before you get any some perfume you absolutely make sure that you measure in detail the space that you have below you have to take into consideration any own beams that the sand may have in order for you to make sure that you can easily insert this some perfume into the stand if you run into problems and I've seen this happen so many times before and I've gotten so many questions on this it's just it's going to make your day a living hell make sure that you measure it properly now if you want more information on this particular some perfume the trigger system I've created a video and did so in the past reviewing it in detail I'm going to put a link in the description box down below so you can reach that video a lot easier now the third aspect I wanted to touch up before we get closer to the some perfume and discuss it in detail is the noise factor now this is such a common question on my channel in private messages I constantly get asked why is it that I'm hearing a gurgling noise why is it that I can't sleep at night because I'm hearing excessive noise coming out of the summer future there's two reasons for that okay number one you didn't properly take the steps to somewhat seal your stain I say somewhat because of course you don't want to make sure that you seal the entire stand shut obviously have to have some sort of fresh air coming into the stand to circulate so what I did in my case was I took a big piece of plywood I cut it to specification and left an opening on the back and installed it in the back there so that less noise would be coming out of the supper future but I made absolutely sure that I had some air coming into the stand and as a matter of fact I've gone ahead and added a fan that's bringing an air from the outside into the stand this is very important but if you're hearing excessive noise you might want to take the necessary steps to somewhat seal the stand now number two reason why you would hear noise is the gurgling sound commonly gets asked in my channel why am i hearing all this gurgling you know there's there's one solution for that and it's very simple it's a dorsal stand pipe that's what it's called I covered that in earlier videos one of my videos title must do maintenance every six months or something I'm going to put a link down in the description box down below also for that video the dorsal stand pipe the problem is that a lot of hobbyists they decide to build it on their own or they don't have one in general so if you don't have one you're going to hear that gurgling noise coming down but those of you who decide to build it on your own and do it incorrectly and don't allow a big enough hole on the top of the dorsal stand pipe for it to breathe properly are going to experience that gurgling noise so in my case I didn't have that problem because I bought an overflow kit the overflow kit bought a properly sized and properly set up dorsal stand pipe and so I don't hear that gurgling noise but this is something that is easy to fix if you just you know take some time and do some research on the dorsal standpipe you will come up with a solution for that excess noise now last but not least here guys I wanted to mention that it is extremely important for yourself to be nice and neat if you're going to add a reef keeper light system if you're going to go ahead and install a reactor or a calculus or reactor or a calcium reactor any equipment that you want to add in there you want to try to be as neat as possible being me means that when you come back and you and you're gonna work on your system it's not gonna feel so much like a burden you have all these things flying you know wires all over the place and in the incorrect setup we're gonna take a closer look and what I've done with the reef keeper light system and everything down here below and we're going to take assuming close-up on how I've set it up and discuss each and every one of these stages so bear with me we will be right back with that closer okay so now we're actually a lot closer to the tank and we're looking at the bottom of my 90 gallon tanks dual drains and dual returned now I wanted to mention quickly here that almost every single 90 gallon system you're gonna find out there today likely only has one drain and one return there's nothing wrong with that it'll work just as effectively as this particular tank which actually you know is designed for more flow you know it's basically a little bit more leaning towards the setup of a reef and it brings two dreams in to returns and while they don't manufacture this manatee gallon tech tank anymore you can actually if you wish you could contact the manufacturer of say an acrylic tank maker and have them design you a tank just like this but just know for a fact that if you only have one drain on your 90 gallon system it's gonna work just as good now you're going to see here next to the drains and the returns the reef keeper light um set up here I've got the modules neatly here make sure that I install them away from the water where it's not going to splash up to it and I also made sure that I labeled each and every one of my equipment this is also important that I relay that message to you guys once again if you're not neat about it you're just going to be struggling trying to find which pump is which and you know it's just gonna run into a big headache for you so this is what the sump refugium looks like on the top here you can see it there and you can see I have one module there and another module over on this side here now the drains here as I mentioned before you know if you only have one and your sump in particular brings two bulkheads it doesn't matter you can basically just use one of the bulkheads and leave the other one beat but in this particular case here I've got two drains which are basically the rib kinky tubing that you see here now this is another question that I get commonly asked where did you get this kinky gray um rigid tubing if you go to Google guys if you go to Google and you type in wet dry filter drain kit you're gonna find it it's probably gonna come with silicone so you can size it properly as I've done with this one here you can see that I've basically cut it to specification so we can go straight into that drain there um and it's going to bring that silicone so you could cut it add the new piece and you know put it together now I mentioned hard plumbing earlier and although this is main we dump with flexible tubing here I did have to use some PVC and you're likely to have to do that as well if your sump refugium comes with bulkheads in most cases is either comes with the kinky tubing and the pieces that you need in my case I had to go to Home Depot and get these pieces of PVC here it's not that difficult to figure out but the water basically drains from the too kinky tubing that you see here the great zooming and enters the first stage now this first stage here is basically you know gravity water feeds from the tank down into the sump refugium now because I use strong water flow in this tank um with a mag drive 18 because it has a dual overflow I'm able to get very strong flow in this first stage which is very important here we're gonna back up the camera let me go ahead here and turn this light around which is my LED but I want to focus mainly on the first stage here when I cover this for you guys in as much detail as possible now this is the first stage I've created this stage and requested that the stage be 17 inches by 15 inches and that's because I wanted to add this aqua CEB 240 to this setup it's an awesome protein skimmer and because it is large you know I have to make sure that this stage was big enough and this is another and I go back to earlier in the video make sure that you have an idea of what protein skimmer you want to add before you have the subterfuge of built or before you build it yourself or before you have an order and make sure you go online and you you know look up those measurements to be sure that this system is going to fit now in my case here I remove the filter socks okay there's a couple of reasons why here you know the filter stocks basically traps waste and creates more nitrates and whatnot and I didn't want that in the system and there's also the reason that I wanted everything to flow through the system as much as possible to feed the corals and stuff when you have a filter Sox here in the back you know it's it's someone prevents that plus there's the added you know work that you have to do they you know these filter sucks they get they get climbed up really fast and easy and so you're gonna have to come back and do it but it is entirely up to you whether or not you want to deal with the filter Sox and you can go ahead and do that now because I have the space here on this first stage and because I only added fifty pounds of live rock on the main display I've gone ahead and added an extra forty pounds behind the protein skimmer however I don't recommend you to do that unless you have that strong water flow we're going to move the camera back a little bit here more sorry about that clicking noise it's actually the cap on the camera you're going to notice I actually have position down below another maxi jet pump on this first stage let me see if I can get this so you guys can see this clearly and you can see that maxi jet pump which is basically pointing towards the bottom of the protein skimmer the protein skimmer needed to be lifted up off the ground a few inches so that the output of the skimmer is above the water this is how most protein skimmers work properly so because I wanted this first stage to be maintenance free I've got that live rock in the back I've got that strong pressure coming down from the dual drains blasting the ground preventing detritus from settling there and then I've got an extra maxi jet to a hundred that's just keeping the water moving in this first stage and you can see it there I mean it's it's just there's constant water movement in the stage preventing that detritus from settling there so this is just the tip and trick for you guys for those of you who have enough space if you don't want to deal with siphoning that detritus add a small power head in this first stage keep that they try to suspend it let the protein skimmer remove it from the system now last but not least from this first stage I've got the pump of the protein skimmer behind the maxi jet 1200 and of course I have here my two probes I've got my pH probe and I've got my temperature probe also I also have here you're gonna see this black tubing that's coming down here in the center is basically the tubing that delivers the khalasar solution into the first stage this is important also you don't want that kalkwasser solution being delivered to the last stage because it's gonna um it's not gonna mix properly before it enters the main display so it's recommended at least I recommend you you know so make sure that it drips into the first stage also wanted to quickly mention that on top of the live rock I have this bag of chemically um I tend to use four bags of chemically but in reality I'm only using three bags I basically take the three that I have to replace add one here and just replace the three new ones into the last stage so that basically covers the first stage now we're going to move on to the refugium stage this is the most important here now you're going to notice some differences here for starters I'm using LEDs now these particular LEDs are working just beautifully I mean you can see here I've got you know the Cato Morpha which is a massive huge growth in the back and then I've got some gratzel area here in the front but here's the thing about the the the algae that you use in a refusal it's important for you to just stick with kato morpha why I say that because kato morpha is just going to continue to grow and it's not going to die out as easily as any other macro algae it really is the hardiest of them all on top of that it doesn't leak chemicals back into the water as the grass Salaria will do for example this particular algae the one that you see in the front with the strands can go a sexual and most other macro algae will go a sexual if it goes a sexual it basically starts to die out in order to reproduce and releases everything that it has consumed all that nitrates phosphates everything is just going to release it back into the water column you can experience you know more than normal growth of nuisance algae and it's just you know it's problematic however I can honestly tell you that if you like your refugium 24 hours a day it is likely that your macro algae will not go a sexual it only happens during the night so we've covered the algae here how do you recommend you to just use kato morpha just to avoid the problems now you're gonna see that I've got one inch of miracle mud only and you're gonna notice that I've got very little rock in that first in that refugium stage this is a very common misconception that I see a lot of people doing they take the refugium and they fill it up with rock the rock is basically going to become a detritus trap you know the detritus is going to settle beneath beneath the rock and it's just going to become extremely problematic in the download you want to keep at least amount of rock in the refugium as possible but you do want to keep some rock and I do recommend you to initially add a large piece of rock to seed the bed that you have below now in this case I have one inch of miracle mud before this I had three inches of sand and one inch of miracle mud on top I've done this for experimentation purposes only I've gone ahead and because I already have a deep salmon in the main display I've decided to go ahead and just add one inch of miracle mud only and I've been doing this now for approximately a little more than six months I can honestly tell you that a deep sound bit will basically put your skimmer to shame in all honesty here I mean when I had the deep Samba my skimmer didn't produce as much and once I've removed it and just kept it a one inch of miracle mud the skimmer has been going crazy ever since and you know so deep salads are absolutely beneficial to have but they do work best when you have a larger surface area it's going to work a lot better in your main display than in a small area here and this leads to what we're going to talk about in part two when we get to the 30 gallon nano system hang on the back of future I'm going to show you the health at that some perfume went through because I tried to add a deep sound bit there so I've covered the refugium stage if there's anything I've missed you guys can post any questions down below the media stage here quite simple and easy to understand especially with this particular sum I basically just put um it has a foam pad on the top preventing any of that excess macro algae to make it into the last stage and clog up the pumps and it also serves as a media stage for Mike MEP really I basically put three bags of candy on this stage here to keep my system completely clean and filtered properly now in this last stage here you're also going to witness that there's a small maxi jet pump in the front here using suction cups and it's basically keeping the water moving in this last stage before it reaches up to the main display this is important I stated earlier so that it can keep the detritus suspended the only area in this entire sump refugium that I want detritus to settle is in the refugium stage only where it will be processed by the critters that live there so I don't have to deal with it you know this is very important this is another tip or trick if you want to look at it that way which you might want to incorporate into your supper future now next to the maxi jet 1200 I've got a mag drive 18 pump which basically uses this black tubing here and returns it and splits into what you see here which is a wife inning which returns it to each side of the returns up on top so very easy to set up here when it comes to this and this mag drive 18 as I mentioned earlier you know with all the twist and turn it's probably giving me somewhere around twelve to thirteen hundred gallons per hour behind this mag drive 18 is yet another mag drive pump it's a mag drive seven which is basically feeding the chiller and the children is basically outputting the water back into the main display this is very important for me to keep this final stage with plenty of space so that I can incorporate these pumps needed in order for the system to run properly now last but not least we've got one last pump in there and that's another maxi jet 1200 which is basically controlling this reactor here with some raufoss and you can see the raufoss they're you know working and keeping the system phosphate free as much as possible now the last thing we're going to cover here is the float switch this is another item that is installed here in this final stage and there's a reason why this final stage is the only stage that changes when it comes to the water level this particular setup has a design that it keeps the water level in the first and second stage constant a 10 inch deep water level and it never changes however there are some some perfumes that are set up differently where it does allow you to incorporate the float switch in the first stage in this case it's got to go into the final stage here this is my supper future it's my pride and joy it's the heart of my filtration system it's what keeps the tank running and bring young properly and it's one of the main reasons why I haven't done a water change to the system in more than a year and a half I might create a video sometime in the future on is it possible for you to run a reef without doing any water changes so we're gonna discuss that hope you guys have enjoyed this particular video support my channel guys let me see those thumbs up let me see that you support my channel favorite my video if you can you know if I see that I see that you guys want me to release more videos and of course I'm going to be on top of that I'm going to try my best to start releasing videos on a weekly basis coming up is part two where we're going to be covering the hang on the back refugium on the 30 system I know a lot of you do not want to miss this episode because obviously it's going to feature the 30 gallon now so with that said hope you guys have enjoyed this video here many more to come don't forget to rate my video guys with that said this is New York steelo signing out peace