Refugium Setup

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Everything's going swimmingly (pun intended) with the refugium. The mangroves are looking good, and the algae seems good, too. (It's hard to tell whether it's grown at all yet.) The guy at the LFS "accidentally" gave me some microstars along with some algae for my refugium, and they've promptly disappeared for the most part. Every now and then I see one.

The pH dipped down at first, but seems fine now. I'm doing a bigger-than-usual partial water change today and I'm looking forward to seeing the refugium's true effect in keeping everything stable.
 
The mangroves are very slow growing trees and thus are far less effective than macro algaes. Look into Caulerpa Sp. Specially Caulerpa Taxifolia or Mexicana. They are both fast growing and great nitrate reducers. They do well in sandy substrates since they grow runners under the sand becoming a huge mat. If your sand bed is 3" to 4" deep (depending on the size of the particles- shallower as particles get smaller) you can also develop the anaerobic bacteria that consumes nitrates :). A live sand starter kit (try www.ipsf.com) will provide the copepods, amphipods, brittle stars, worms and other critters which keep the sand bed stirred slowly to allow the bacteria to work. Use a cleaning crew of hermits and snails to keep nuissance algae from smothering the macro algae. You could keep the light on 24 hours with these two species as long as you provide a constant concentration of iron in the water, but the algae will grow faster if you allow a night period of around 4-5 hours for cellular respiration and regeneration. Good luck !
 
Copepods and amphipods are small crustaceans

Amphipod-Talochestia.jpg

copepod.jpg
 
Frontosa man - If I were you, I would loose those bio-balls in your sump.. it really defeats the purpose of having a refugium.. a refugium is used for nutrient export and reduce nitrate, but bio-balls are a nitrate factory.
 
skinnychinaman said:
Frontosa man - If I were you, I would loose those bio-balls in your sump.. it really defeats the purpose of having a refugium.. a refugium is used for nutrient export and reduce nitrate, but bio-balls are a nitrate factory.
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i know this. but im using them to help seed my newly set up tank( i took half of tem from my other tank). after the cycle is over it will be replaced with live rock. my fuge is fed by a pump that is at 70 gph.the bottom half is sump and the top is fuge.
 
nice setup front-man, i like hoe you incorporated the refuge in the upper area of the tank

here is a pic of mine...



the calurpa grows like crazey - it has more then quadrupled in mass and i have to cut it back - there is also a mix of a few other species of macroalgae
 
here was my little lab.. enjoy

35045tanko1sump.jpg

35045tank11_2003-med.jpg

35045tankfull.jpg
 
I had to sell that tank setup due to a move.. it was in my one bedroom apartment.. but now i have a house and a storefront.. so all my stuff are in the store now..lol
 
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