aquatraders refugium

[beanhead]

I ordered the small aquatraders refugium and got it in yesterday, the piece is solid and i had no problem with assembly or intial hanging on tank. I do have to say this unit looks huge on the back of my 10 gallon and i could deal with that but its incredibly loud. I also ordered the odyssea 250 pump which pumps well maybe even a little to much but it will not pull air with the supplied air tube and valve that is supposed to be adjustable. I had to feed air into the pump with a spare air pump i had lying around and it still didnt produce a good micro bubble. The biggest problem i have with the unit is the slurping of the return pipe and micro bubles into the display tank. Has anyone setup one of these with any success or can anyone point me in the right direction.

[markalot]

I ordered the small aquatraders refugium and got it in yesterday, the piece is solid and i had no problem with assembly or intial hanging on tank. I do have to say this unit looks huge on the back of my 10 gallon and i could deal with that but its incredibly loud. I also ordered the odyssea 250 pump which pumps well maybe even a little to much but it will not pull air with the supplied air tube and valve that is supposed to be adjustable. I had to feed air into the pump with a spare air pump i had lying around and it still didnt produce a good micro bubble. The biggest problem i have with the unit is the slurping of the return pipe and micro bubles into the display tank. Has anyone setup one of these with any success or can anyone point me in the right direction.

 

I have a CPR aquafuge that I paid way too much money for. It's driven by a submersible pump that pulls water into the fuge. Water runs out (gravity) on the other side of the unit. I gather this unit is air powered and perhaps that's the issue. Small pumps are fairly inexpensive so perhaps you attach one to the intake? A picture would help.

 

This old sales thread has a nice image of the CPR unit with a pump attached.

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=148192

 

[Grumblecakes]

try angling the out take tube up slightly kinda like in that photo above. On my back pack II i had the same problem with the noise, i drilled a tiny hole in the top of the pipe and it helped some. also make sure the out put is about half out of the water.

 

oh and the Acella pump for the back pak should fit that. they are pretty cheap on marinedepot.com with my skimmer its been night and day compared to a maxijet with noise and bubble production. Try also adding a few feet of airline to it to quite it down.

 

One last thing you could do is cut the tube down some so the pump is closer to the surface.. venturis have a hard time pulling air down under water very far.

[beanhead]

ok so i removed about 2" from the intake tube and about 3/4" from the return and that sits the pump fairly close to the surface and the return will be about center pipe with the water level when i solve the new issue. I need to know where to drill a syphon break so i can fill my tank back up to level once the refugium is running. I'm thinking just below the normal refugium water level on the input pipe but wanted to verify before i drilled.

[Grumblecakes]

i drilled mine right at the top of the top output elbow. It may not even be necessary. i would run it first and see if the noise is still there.

[beanhead]

The issue now isn't the noise, its the refugium back filling into the main display when the pump is off. I'm thinking i can put a syphon break on the intake side so it wont back syphon when powered down, was hoping someone has done this already dont like just drilling stuff blind.