alistair Posted November 29, 2004 Share Posted November 29, 2004 Just built an AC500 refugium for my 26gal bow front. I installed the baffle as close to the water inlet as possible to maximize the amount of space for sand. There seems to be alot, alot of flow as the water flows over the baffle and into the tank. Being new to the hobby I need some help..... Should I drill a couple of small holes lower down the baffle to reduce the flow on top, and increase the flow just above the sand line? How much sand should I have? I have a good 3-4 Inches. How do people block the refuge light from spilling into the main tank? Link to comment
WaterWorldAquatics Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 perhaps a simple tin foil wrap around could help with light spillage. Link to comment
stash98 Posted January 14, 2005 Share Posted January 14, 2005 there has to be a little light you can crazy glue on to the top of the aquclear filter..that would reduce evap by so much..do LEDs work? also would you need a light at all if you just had LR and live sand in there Link to comment
Dave Angel Posted February 1, 2005 Share Posted February 1, 2005 Adressing the light spillage issue - Would it help if sprayed the outsides (nearest to the glass) and lid with black acrylic paint? If you then fitted the light flush to the lid, you would still get light coming out of the overspill, but it would cut it down considerably. If you kept the back (or one side panel) unpainted you could still see inside. Link to comment
slickchick Posted February 19, 2005 Share Posted February 19, 2005 This is an excellent thread! I have purchased an AC 500 and have made a baffle and I am going to adhere it with goop from Home Depot. The baffle was made out of a cd case and is 5 inches high. My tank is a 37 gallon Oceanic so I need about a 100 watt heater. I ordered the Visitherm Stealth because it is plastic and all black and I liked how inconspicuous it would look plus it turns off automatically when out of the water. (Can I just tell you how many times I've been like, "Oh NO!! Don't tell me the heater is still plugged in!! LOL) My question is: Can I place the heater horizontally in the AC 500 at the top of the fuge? It would fit and the water would flow right over it into the tank. Is this a bad idea? It would look like this. Link to comment
porkbullet Posted March 3, 2005 Share Posted March 3, 2005 OK, I just converted an AC 500 for my 10 gallon and let me just say, that a Dremel is your best friend in doing this mod. I wouldn't go so far as to say you HAVE to have one, but it sure helped me out a lot. To create the baffle, I used the side of the filter basket and traced it onto a piece of card stock, then cut it out and placed it in the AC500 to check for fit. After a couple of tries doing that I finally got a template that fit nice and snug. I cut apart the thick plastic lid of a bucket of salt using a utility knife and traced around the card-stock template with a sharpie. Then I used the Dremel to cut out the baffle. I used Loc-Tite super glue gel and super-glued the baffle in place and let it cure for an hour or so. Then tested it in the bath tub. It worked like a CHAMP! I purchased the Coralife 9" mini Aqualight to use on the new fuge. I wanted to keep the lid on the AC500 to minimize evaporation and noise, so I took the lid and traced the outline of the actual bulb area of the Aqualight. Then took the Dremel and cut out a perfect rectangle. Now the Aqualight sits directly on the lid and shines unobstructed into the fuge area. All this can be done without the Dremel, but I found it to be a huge help. Link to comment
porkbullet Posted March 3, 2005 Share Posted March 3, 2005 Hmmm.. guess the link to the light on Big Al's site didn't work. Oh well, just look under lighting, it's in there. Link to comment
EPICTANKHERE Posted March 9, 2005 Share Posted March 9, 2005 I used the 7 watt red sea art deco light from Al's and cut the hood of the filter to fit perfect with the dremel. I have pics on my thread for it!!! check it out! It's perfect! http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/showthread...20&pagenumber=1 Link to comment
calvin Posted March 10, 2005 Share Posted March 10, 2005 porkbullet, doesn't the coralife light hang over the edge of the fuge a bit? I read that the light is 5" wide while the filter is 4.5". Link to comment
p@ndor@ Posted March 10, 2005 Share Posted March 10, 2005 I did the exact same Coralife 9" mini aqualight mod as porkbullet and it's perfect! I also have a dremel (thank goodness!!) and I don't think my handicapped DIY ability would have been able to handle the task without it! The only thing I would do better is to allocate more space for the heater. It's kinda crammed in diagonally right before the main fuge area, but it works and keeps my temp steady, so I guess that's all that matters. I tried the surface skimmer attachment but kept having issues with bubbles after a few days' worth of crud (wouldn't "bob" properly for me) so I removed it. But I took off the black ring that sits right before the intake and that, combined with the longer intake tube, has made my flow perfect. Whenever I think about starting another tank, it's hard to not consider doing this exact same setup again ... I just love the way it came out, but I'm trying desparately to not start another tank until this one is "finished" (but, really, are they EVER finished?). Link to comment
fishyface Posted April 5, 2005 Share Posted April 5, 2005 Originally posted by myBFOnano I installed the AC surface skimmer and removed the black disc on the impeller side of the intake tube. These two things reduce flow to the point that it flows less than my old AC mini IMO. just as an aside here removing the black disc on the impeller side of intake tube did absolutely nothing to reduce flow for me!!:*( Link to comment
HideMe Posted April 6, 2005 Share Posted April 6, 2005 Love this thread... Is there a reason no one seems to use the Perfecto Incandescent Light Strip for the AC500? It's 12" long, sold at PetsMart for a mere $6.99 (web price). I thought I would put a mini compact aquatic bulb in and let 'er rip. Is this not a good plan? Should I get this out of my head and get the Palm light instead? Thoughts? Opinions? Link to comment
WaterWorldAquatics Posted April 23, 2005 Share Posted April 23, 2005 I would say that the incandscent strip would be too much heat and overheat the thing...... Link to comment
ktownhero Posted May 8, 2005 Share Posted May 8, 2005 Purchased my AC110 with surface skimmer from BigAl tonight. Can't wait to get it this week and start setting up this new 20L. Link to comment
der1311 Posted May 13, 2005 Share Posted May 13, 2005 I'm new to this forum and I don't have an aquaclear 500, yet. But I am thinking of makeing a baffle just like everyone else. But to reduce the flow I'm thinking about puting a powerhead on the intake side of the baffel. Then run a hose from the powerhead to the other side of my tank to create more flow over on that side. So I'm wondering, would this slow down the flow comming out of the ac500 or would it just not work at all? Link to comment
fishyface Posted May 13, 2005 Share Posted May 13, 2005 i just cut the impeller blades, about 1cm each blade which sufficiently reduced flow for my ac 500. Link to comment
Cloudy Posted May 13, 2005 Share Posted May 13, 2005 I hate the impeller on the 500, i swear to god that I can hear it running over the dremel when i'm working on stuff in my tank room. I had this nice little thing going on my AC500... I pulled the impeller and put a power-head in it's place... then I ran the out put of the head through a spray bar that pushed up and through my cheato. I think I got much quicker nitrate reduction because of the flow. I would rinse out the cheto whenever i did a water change. I was realy happy with the whole thing untill i got a real sump with some gallonage. Hey... my ten gal is getting kinda crowded. How many tangs do you think I could move to the fuge? -S Link to comment
Fishguy Posted May 25, 2005 Share Posted May 25, 2005 Great thread. I ordered the AC500 and the corallife retro light today. can't wait to start piecing this together to replace my fluval 305 thats presently just running activated carbon. I haven't had any problems yet, the tank has been running great. but I've been playing with the idea of doing a fuge.. and after reading this thread.. it did me in. Link to comment
Fishguy Posted May 25, 2005 Share Posted May 25, 2005 Great thread. I ordered the AC500 and the corallife retro light today. can't wait to start piecing this together to replace my fluval 305 thats presently just running activated carbon. I haven't had any problems yet, the tank has been running great. but I've been playing with the idea of doing a fuge.. and after reading this thread.. it did me in. Link to comment
Fishguy Posted May 25, 2005 Share Posted May 25, 2005 you think I'd know better than to hit the submit button twice. Link to comment
PhatSOB Posted May 31, 2005 Share Posted May 31, 2005 well it took me all day to get through this thread, wow, info overload but since everything was repeated several times I think I have a pretty good grasp of it all. just have to decide if I want a 300 or 500. BTW any one live in Eastern Canada have some spare macros they want to sell. the closest LFS to me is in another province now. PetsUnlimited put our good one(only one with marine) out of business. Link to comment
LSUtiger Posted December 15, 2007 Share Posted December 15, 2007 Anyone still using the AC Filters as a Fuge? How far from the pump compartment should the baffle be installed to leave room for the AC skimmer and a heater? This question was asked a few times in this thread, but I never saw it answered. Thanks, Mark Link to comment
ph1sh99 Posted May 4, 2009 Share Posted May 4, 2009 I set up a similar fuge using an old power filter with the picotope stock light for it. How do you keep the light out of the main tank when this is on at night? does anyone have any pics of any enclosures they've built? Thank you Link to comment
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