5 years and still floating.  Cool. I'm pleased to be wrong.

OK Jared!  It took me two months and another request by Bugzme, but I finally got more pictures.

My floating refugium has been in the sump now for around 8 months.  It seems to be holding up well, but I have had macro attaching itself to the sides and that seems to have started to break down the styrofoam a little.  Not enough to worry about though.  My tank has never looked better so if it is putting stuff into the water it must be "good" stuff.

Here's the full sump.  As you can see I've added a skimmer since the last pics.

Here is the Protien skimmer side of the sump.  this side also houses the return pump.

This is the filter sock side.

The filter sock side of the refugium I use as a frag area.  When it's not overgrown with Macro.

Each side of the refugium has 6 holes drilled in it near the top.  I have to clean the macro out of them every once in a while to keep them flowing.  Also here you can see the deterioration on the top lip of the styrofoam box.  I believe this is caused by the PC lighting that is on 24 hours now.  Not to mention the Hermit Crabs that seem to love crawling around up here.

The other side of the refugium seems to grow macro very well.

All of this keeps my shy guys...

and their roudy friend, very happy.  (Couldn't resist the extra pics.)

(P.S. sorry for the long download for all those with slow internet connections.  Hope it was worth the time.)

Cool.  I really like the floating refugium idea.  Thanks to your experience I'll be able to do it on purpose instead of by accident.  

I hope you can get some picture up soon.

Jared, The refugium is doing great.  I have not noticed any problem at all with degrading.  This is not to say that it still won't,  but everything still looks fine.  I actually have about 20 small hermits in it now and was afraid that they might pick at it, but so far they don't seem interested and they've been in there for over a month.  As far as light or UV degrading it I haven't seen anything there either, but I recently took out a Home Depot light that was on the opposite side of the sump from the refugium and replaced it with a 55 watt PC I had kicking around, placed right over the refugium.  I don't know if this will cause a problem for the sump, but I would guess not since any light or UV would have to penetrate the Macro Algae that is now growing rather well in there.

I'll post some pics when I can get some, but I guess my wife took off with the camera this evening.

Richard L., sure the box is free, but the stuff the LFS wants you to put in it can be pricey.  I've gotten several of these boxes, but each time I've purchased $70-$140 worth of "stuff" to put in it.  Is there anyone who can honestly go into an LFS without spending too much money?  If there is it's not me.

So Will,

How about an update on this?  It has been almost 4 months.  I asked you about it Thursday night and you said it was holding up fine.  Can you give us any more details?  Do you every get little bits of styrofoam floating around?  I'd like to see a picture or two.