new refugium question

[convictblenny]

Just installed a cpr aquafuge with skimmer/light on my fish and invertibrate with live rock 55 gallon tank about two weeks ago. My tank was high nitrate. I put a few inches of live sand and a handful of the brillo type macro algae in the refuge. I now have what looks like little see through itty bitty things swimming in the refuge and in the algae. I assume they are plankton or pods or something. The question is this. The sand in the refuge has now been taken over with brown diatoms. The sand in my main tank is now almost pristine white. Should I throw some snails or sifters from the main tank into the refuge or let the sand remain covered by diatoms.

 

[mmkeeper]

You could throw a few in there. You also can vaccume the top of the sand and do a water change to export out the nitrates.

 

[burning2nd]

mysis srimp, floating around,


good little buddy's

 

[Krish]

I'd go with the vaccuming as well. You don't want your fuge to work against you becoming a detritus trap. Vaccuming will remove the diatoms and any settled detritus. In any event, how deep is the sand bed in the sump? The reason I ask is because it may not benefit you much. Not deep enough and it will not denitrify as you need to have anaerobic zones in order for denitrification to take place and if the fuge is small, even with a deep sand bed, may not be enough sand total (because of the limited size of the fuge) to benefit any. This is usually why people will just toss in an algae to do the nutrient export for them as the sand sometimes just provides a place to trap detritus and nothing more and also another part of the system that needs constant cleaning. Just a thought I figured I'd throw out there

 

[Bainic]

I doubt the small clear things you see are mysis, more likely they are copepods, and they are good things. I would put a couple snails in the refugium to help with cleaning.