Fuge Problems??? :mad:

[LakeEd]

No animals to take care of the detritus??

Hey T-Man!

You know... THAT is a very good point, that I had not taken into concideration at all with my Fuge. I have ZERO clean-up crew in my Fuge as of right now!
DUH!!!
I have snails, shrimp, urchins and stars in my main tank for clean-up crew... yet nothing in my Fuge... and I'm expecting as clean a setup there??? Quite possiblly the flaw that I've been looking for in my setup ideas!!!

Thanks guy!

 

[gbr]

I have added 15 trochus snails between the two tanks and they are helping...just not fast enough for me. Of course you don't want to add anything in there that will destroy the fauna you are trying to protect but adding some snails, pods, worms etc may help.

 

[LakeEd]

Along with my weekly cleaning this weekend, I am going to add a couple (possiblly 3??) Trochus for a clean-up crew... along with some Tiger-Pods. Will have to see how this does, but sounds like this thread did exactly what I needed it to... and that was kick-start my mind again, helping me find a solution!

THANKS ALL!!!

 

[Haole]

Glad if I was any help to you Ed.
I’m also glad you posted your question since I’m planning to do a sump/fuge and it gives me a chance to learn on what to expect from a refugium set up like what you have with just cheato in it as it progresses from startup. I would like your opinion on something though... Does that LOA light fixture put off a lot of heat?

 

[LakeEd]

Rob,

If I put my hand directly under the LOA fixture, I can feel a little heat... but honestly, not much at all!

I have done the various PC-Flood lights available at Home Depot over my fuge. I was most happy with the light I'll attach a picture of below. It always had just a hint of yellow to it, but my chaeto grew well, and the price was right! *grinz* This LOA flood light, gives off a very white spectrum light after it warms up, and I'm hopeful it will do well over my 40gallon Fuge.

 

[Haole]

Thanks Ed
I hope you'll eventually post back to this thread after putting in your new additions of snails and pods. If anything just to state if this helped or not. I'm sure it will, and now that I think about it I could swear I've seen simular suggestions like this somewhere else before.

 

[Ashlar]

My 55g fuge went through the same cycle. I added two MJ 1200 powerheads, and it eventually went away (took about 3 months of siphoning excess out once a week).

 

[Slickdonkey]

I had a similar problem in my overflows. I happened to stick my head under the tank one day and look up into the overflow and saw all kinds of nasty diatoms and hair algae growing in there. I threw a couple astrea and nassarius snails in each overflow and within a month they are looking pretty clean.