How to insert a refugium area in my new aquarium tropical?
Better to create it in the aquarium or inside the main SUMP?
Let's talk ...

The 'aquarium below the aquarium, called for convenience sump act as the "cockpit" is about the size of the aquarium "visible", just a little' low, and divided into 2 parts

1. RO tank (30 liters)
2. compartment remaining (approximately 2/3 of the space) divided in the center by a bulkhead 3/4 of the height, so that for example can be made to go into the water falling from the aquarium in a compartment, and from this the ' water arrives in the one next to the recirculation pump back into the aquarium that the top

How to add and where to add a separate space in which to raise small animals, especially crustaceans and algae over the very useful, such as Caulerpa, Chaetomorpha, and others?

1. tray higher than the water level, inserted in the central space of the sump, where there is the return pump: a derivation in the delivery pipe that starts from the recirculation pump are managing a flow of water that ends up inside the refugium and from this water returns by gravity into the compartment where supported. EXAMPLE 1 , EXAMPLE 2 .
   The solution I think it makes a noise, unless you use different pipes and siphons to cushion. Something like what I did for my previous aquarium, dismantled in 2007, where I approached a tray under the sump to the aquarium refugium for marine aquarium .
2. creating a separate compartment where to put the pump outlet, to which the water arrives via a bulkhead not too high. The disadvantage I see is the possibility that the algae could end up in the pump, until the extreme danger of otturarla! You can avoid extending the bulkhead with a retina, where it can pass the water holding algae and small animals larger.

Another possibility is to realize a very small attached to a main wall of the aquarium, creating a small aquarium in the aquarium. It 's really not a solution because the general view in part ruined the aesthetics of the aquarium, while lifting space and swimming fish. This would provide a sort of cage with for example a perforated plexiglass box, attached to a wall of the tank. Better then if a small pump on the outside it helps the circulation within and around the aquarium, aquarium favoring the fall of small organisms that live inside. The advantage of this solution, it is precisely in the greater possibility that of small animals from falling down but not perhaps be crushed by the lift pump impeller.

In the first case it could be larger, but operate almost exclusively as "algario" (for example with the Chaetomorpha), in the latter, would have the advantage of being able to provide live food to the inhabitants of the tank main ...

At the moment, since I'm still waiting for the glass tank 80x55x55 are pasting, the solution is the No. 2, I only cut out a piece of PVC to length, attach the top piece of plastic mesh, and in one of siliconarlo 2 rooms of the SUMP.