Disaster in the Refugium

[yankit3@hotmail]

Dear All,

See if you couold help. My purple fire goby, 1 fire shrimp & 2 cleanr shrimps that were kept in a 24" x 12" x 18" refugium in early April died one by one since day before yestrday. The refugium was conncted to the main display at 48" x 24" 24" and all the fish were OK. Just don't know why. I noticed some sort of white bugs crawling all over the glass surface as well as the sand surface. Would these little bugs bother the fish & shrimp? OR the CO2 released during the night kill the fish & shrimp? But why can they survive for 3 months if these are the causes of their death?

Jimmy WONG
from Hong Kong

 

[bradreef]

the little bugs are most likely pods. great to have. I would look at how the fish died. any visible problems? could be chemical. What is in your refuge?

 

[yankit3@hotmail]

Dear Bradreef. Apart from those fish & shrimps mentioned there were some sort of macro growing on two pieces of live rock. If the water got screwed up why the main tank was not affected (touch wood)? Dare not put anything that swims in the refugium for the time being

 

[diablo]

what ever is in your fuge is most likely to be in the main aquarium as well. have you tested your water?

 

[4251cpd]

JW, the macro may have gone sexual, making it toxic. Did you have any type of filtering btn the fuge and display? Take a measure of all water parameters from the fuge and the display, see if there is any major difference btn the two.

 

[yankit3@hotmail]

4251cpd, thanks. But what should I test ? NO2,NO3? What's meant by "gone sexual"?

Jimmy

 

[yankit3@hotmail]

Dear Mate, 4251cpd is right. Just have NO3 tested. Display is OK but not the refug. It's deep pink! But I've the water circulated btw the main and the refug by a cannister filter which has nothing inside. BTW I've harvested the marco a couple of hours ago. So in future I have to do periodical WATER CHANGE to the refug as well as the main then? Or I have to increase the water flow btween the main/refug? Or Can I just place another powerhead as to increase the circulation in the refug?

Jimmy

 

[diablo]

how many gph is going threw the fuge now and whats your tank size?

 

[4251cpd]

how many gph is going threw the fuge now and whats your tank size?

D-brings up a good point. Not much sense to have a fuge set-up if there is not a large exchange rate of water btn the display and the sump/fuge. The whole purpose of the fuge is a "natural" way to take out nutrients and have a pod "factory" for supplemental feeding of your display. Not to mention if you have a high turnover rate of water btn the sump/fuge and the display, nuisance macros have less chance of growing because you have the desirable macro in a controlled environment to uptake the excess nutrients.
Good news is that the very problem we are attempting to correct probably saved your display. As for going sexual, if you have any of the calupera(sp) macro family in your tank, they tend to release their boys and girls triggered to lighting period. People who do have success with this macro tend to run their lighting period in the sump 24/7. Darkness triggers the "spawning". In the ocean it's not a problem, but in a smaller space it is toxic.

My advice, do a 25% water change in the sump, run carbon in the canister filter to get the crap out and let us know what the flow rates of all of your pumps and to where they are in the set-up. Welcome to RF, if I haven't mentioned that before. Mike.