I can show you a refugium set up that is small. RobertG is in the process of setting up a larger scale refugium and frag tank, and Eric or greg have good filter set-ups also. I'm sure if you give any of us a call we can arrange for you to take a look.
At any rate you will still need to run carbon from time to time. A refugium is basically a separate tank from your main system that houses sand, rock, and plants. It is not a good idea to put stars, cucumbers, crabs, or things like that in there because they will feed on things you are trying to protect. Don't pay much attention to store set-up's they are not built for long term care. When putting together store tanks the main concerns are holding capacity, ease of access, and viewing area. Stores also use UV sterilizers and bio balls/ bio wheels. Although these are excellent methods for filtering in stores they also produce phosphates in long term use. This doesn't effect store tanks because they are changing soooo much water when acclimating and selling fish it is never a concern. Long term care on the other hand it becomes a problem. Plants will clean a lot from the water, but not everything. I use carbon for about 5 days a month. Carbon is only good for about 3-7 days before it becomes exhausted and needs to be changed or re-charged. Most people don't want to bake carbon in the oven and it is so inexpensive you can just buy new a couple times per month. Carbon is most effective when placed in a heavy flow, such as your returns to the sump. A mesh bag can be purchased and tired to the end of the pipe or you can use pantyhose also. If you change this every two or three weeks you will be changing the carbon as well as removing old debri from your tanks system.
I hope this helps, if you need more let me know and I'll give you a more indepth understanding of a specific part of the sytem you are interested in building.
Tim Marvin
(512) 336-7258
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