above tank refugium

[Oscarsdad608]

I am thinking of making a ten gallon above tank refugium. The many question is can I use my maxi jet powerhead from my old seaclone skimmer? I think it's a 1200. Would a regular strip light be enough lighting? Will I be able to put a ball valve on the overflow from the ten gallon to maintain the right water flow? Any suggestions would be really helpful, thanks Jason

[Bifferwine]

Are you thinking of using the Maxijet as the pump from the main tank to the fuge? If so, I think that will be perfect. Regular strip lighting is fine for a fuge too. I'm not quite understand what you mean by putting a ball valve on the overflow... If you are using the Maxijet to move water to the fuge, then putting a ball valve on the overflow will cause the fuge to flood. Maybe I am understanding wrong?

[Oscarsdad608]

I was thinking with such a small pump from the tank to the refuge it would be easier to adjust the proper flow with the overflow box from the fuge. I have never used a overflow before, so I didn't know if you could change the flow from it.

[Bifferwine]

No, because the pump will still pump at the same rate. So if you slow down flow from the overflow, the water level in the fuge will get higher and higher until it floods. If you want to adjust flow, you will have to do it from the pump.

[Oscarsdad608]

what can you do if the maxijet can't keep up? Besides getting a bigger pump. would it also be dumb to try making it work so my skimmer could go in the fuge, I have a rumora pro hang on

[bobby]

The maxi will work great. You dont want too much flow through it. Don't worrie it will keep up just fine. You only use one pump and pump water from the tank to the fuge and let the fuge drain on its own by gravity.

[Bifferwine]

The water can only move from the fuge to the tank as fast as the pump can pump it. So there's no way that the MaxiJet won't be able to keep up.

[joeman]

Here's maybe another way to think of an overflow system: Imagine a 10 gallon tank full of water - nothing else. you now take a cup of water and pour it into the tank - what will happen? It will overflow of course, but only until the quantity of water you just added has overflowed - it will stop overflowing once it is back to 'full' again. If I don't add another cup of water it will just stay full - if i do add another cup then it will overflow again.

I now place the tank of water over an empty tank so that when I poor water into the tank it overflows into the lower tank. I fill both tanks with water. If I take a cup of water out of the bottom tank it is no longer full, but if I pour it into the upper tank, this tank overflows to fill up the lower tank - no water has enterred or left the system, it has just been moved by me with a cup - this is a 'closed loop' system.

I now get rid of the cup and place a pump into the lower tank (not running). I have a length of tube attached to the outlet of the pump and I put the end of this into the upper tank. The pump is not running, so nothing really happens, I still have two tanks full of water and that is it.

I now switch on the pump. It moves water from the lower tank to the upper tank (as I did with the cup - but it does it continuously). Whatever water it moves to the upper tank overflows back down to the lower tank, and so it continues.

So what happens if I turn off the pump? = no water gets moved to the upper tank, so no water overflows to the lower tank and once again I have two full tanks.

To get back to your question: only as much water will overflow as is being pumped up there. so if I used a strong (high flow rate) pump, then more water would be moved up and consequently that same 'more' water would overflow. If I used a lower powered pump, less water would be moved up and thus less water would overflow.

So in the end it balances itself out perfectly

More confused or did that explain it?

[Oscarsdad608]

does this work with a overflow box or do you have to drill the ten gallon to get the closed loop. I would drill the teng but they seem so thin wouldn't it break easy.

[joeman]

Sorry - no - I wa just using this '10 gallon' tank to describe the principal of an overflow - how it works. I used a lot of words to say the same thing Bobby & Biff did with a few = your pump will not be too slow - only as much water as your pump can pump will flow back down the overflow.