My DIY Refugium is almost complete!
I finished off adding a line of cement to each corner on the interior, doing two per day over the course of a week and finally got chance to test fit it into the system…
Had to dismantle part of the cabinet by removing one of the supports, but there were no ill effects due to the lack of water weight in there yet!
Fits spot on as planned!
And the DaStaCo closes in millimetre perfect when the door is shut…
Next job was to do a dry run of the feed pipework to the refugium, which will be fed with water from the first chamber of the sump using a pump that will be directly next to the floss filters, hoping to ensure the most nutrient rich water will make it to the refugium before it hits the skimmer and reactors…
The feed then runs along the underside of the cabinet to the far end of the refugium…
Before dropping into the refugium to a tee piece…
Due to the conduits i have also attached to the top of the cabinet, it ended up a little offset from the end, so i rectified this with a couple of 90deg joints…
I also added a couple of 45deg joints to enable a bit of variable flow into the refugium…
Now was time for the acid test… well a water test really!
I dumped around 25l in to start with… no issues and it didnt collapse!
So i brimmed it completely…
It has sat like this for around 3 days now and still in one piece! although i did have a minor scare this evening.
As you can see the refugium is sat on some pieces of card. One reason is to protect it, the other is it should give an easy to tell indicator that the tank is leaking, and i came to this…
A small patch right at one of the corners (note i have moved the tank at this point)
I thought it had failed at first, but then remembered there is an RO Booster Pump mounted on the wall directly above where the refugium is sat. It has remained there since i had to take my RO Unit indoors to protect it from freezing during the cold weather we are having.
As it turns out, there was some water left in the lines that have remained connected to it, with some drips hanging of the exposed end…
I took a minor sigh of relief as it looks to have been the pump dripping that has caused the little puddle on the card!
I have since blocked it up and will check on the refugium for a little longer.
The strange thing is, i don't feel completely confident! Even if the wet test is a success, i still may give it another squirt of cement on all the joints or a run of silicone if it will stick, just to be extra sure!
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