Refuge methodology questions

[MarineDreamer]

So I’m hoping that Anthony jumps on in here; but everyone feel free to pipe in.

I want to set up a refugium for my 270 gallon reef. The fuge is going into a 110 gallon tank. My intent is to stock the display tank with three (two females, one male) Mandarins (and maybe a Six-line wrasse) and the original purpose of the fuge was to grow ‘pods. We’ll call this idea ‘Concept 1.’

I was reading Anthony and Bob’s book, Reef Invertebrates, (haven’t finished yet) and I find myself wanting to use the fuge to help with nutrient export by putting a DSB and macroalgae (Chaetomorpha or a Caulerpa spp.) in it. We’ll call this ‘Concept 2.’

From my readings/searches the best stratum for Concept 1 is LR rubble. Which are not the ‘sugar-sized’ gains called for by Concept 2’s methodology. As well, Concept 1 doesn’t require lighting where as Concept 2 does. So the two concepts are apparently exclusive.

I have, however, seen refugiums that where filled with macroalgae that had copious amounts of ‘pods living in and around the macro.

So my question is: would Concept 2; A) grow ‘pods, and B) grow enough for three Mandarins and a possible Six-line? Or is there another solution that I’m overlooking or someone far more brilliant has come up with? I was also thinking that I could drop the Six-line which I would think would be far more effective by eliminating the competitive pressures than getting only one Mandarin and one wrasse.

 

[Scooterman]

Six-line will eat them up but so will the Mandarins. My last tank had lots of pods when I had a dsb, so many the one fat 6 couldn't eat them all, this was in a 100g. Never liked the idea of people calling a DSB in a fuge, DSB's aren't designed to be remote, you need to feed them too heavily to work affectively & in most cases it is too difficult to remove all of your main tank detritus & dump it over your remote sb. Now that said & remote sb is very beneficial, If you plan on growing something to harvest then it is even more beneficial, you should get tons of pods.

 

[ret25yo]

well honestly the only difference i see in your two concepts is light. the concept 1 doesnt need it but throw a light and macro in there and your all set Concept2 go for 2 you cant go wrong.

 

[loohunter]

this has the makings for a great discussion, tagging along

 

[MarineDreamer]

DSB's aren't designed to be remote, you need to feed them too heavily to work affectively & in most cases it is too difficult to remove all of your main tank detritus & dump it over your remote sb.

Hey Scootie, others;

Thanks for hitting me up so quickly; but I have to say "Whoa!"

Here I am thinking that I have one very sweet set-up with the help of my remote DSB to help with the nitrates. To aid your arguement; there will be a 40 gallon sump that I had intended to use to settle out detritus, filter out particulates, and to run carbon. The protein skimmer will be fed from the sump and the skimmer's return will go to the refuge. In short, anything in suspendtion that can be filtered out before the refuge on the first pass, will be...

Now you're introducting the concept that a DSB has to be fed more than what being in the display would allow...

That being the case, what's the point in having a DSB in a remote location?

 

[Scooterman]

Here I am thinking that I have one very sweet set-up with the help of my remote DSB to help with the nitrates.

To be clear I didn't say It wouldn't be beneficial but it will do really well with the processing of Nitrates, my point about the DSB being fed is the purpose of a DSB in the first place, to do what your saying to process nitrates, you can do with a regular sb & do it very well, either way for this purpose.

To aid your arguement; there will be a 40 gallon sump that I had intended to use to settle out detritus, filter out particulates, and to run carbon. The protein skimmer will be fed from the sump and the skimmer's return will go to the refuge. In short, anything in suspension that can be filtered out before the refuge on the first pass, will be...

If you remove all or most of the food for the DSB then you reduce the ability of the sb because it will only grow in beneficial bacteria according to available foods, although contradicting this, If you want the dsb to last a really long time & just do a minimal processing of nitrates, then this would be fine, it will work this way. The capabilities of a DSB can handle a lot of processing when fully developed, down side in time you will need to replace it, probably much sooner than the use on minimal processing.

Now you're introducting the concept that a DSB has to be fed more than what being in the display would allow...

That being the case, what's the point in having a DSB in a remote location?

(this concept isn't new BTW)
Actually in your case If you have a design that suspends particulate & actually works that well your ahead of the game in this case, so as I said in most cases this isn't so. To answer this, having a remote as you mentioned can be used for processing nitrates, helpful if you have a heavily loaded tank, IMO If you have enough LR, you don't need it. In your design, If it is that good of suspending particulates & dumping them to the sump, then that is by far better because before anything becomes harmful to your system, you basically remove it completely from the system, thus no farther processing required, you removed the problem before it becomes a problem & your done with it, it is at this point gone & never will be a problem (as long as you can continually remove at this point).

Having a refugium, processing macro-algae, growing pods can be very beneficial to your system, don't let me confuse this, I'm not arguing that.

 

[NaH2O]

So I’m hoping that Anthony jumps on in here; but everyone feel free to pipe in.

I want to set up a refugium for my 270 gallon reef. The fuge is going into a 110 gallon tank. My intent is to stock the display tank with three (two females, one male) Mandarins (and maybe a Six-line wrasse) and the original purpose of the fuge was to grow ‘pods. We’ll call this idea ‘Concept 1.’

I was reading Anthony and Bob’s book, Reef Invertebrates, (haven’t finished yet) and I find myself wanting to use the fuge to help with nutrient export by putting a DSB and macroalgae (Chaetomorpha or a Caulerpa spp.) in it. We’ll call this ‘Concept 2.’

From my readings/searches the best stratum for Concept 1 is LR rubble. Which are not the ‘sugar-sized’ gains called for by Concept 2’s methodology. As well, Concept 1 doesn’t require lighting where as Concept 2 does. So the two concepts are apparently exclusive.

I have, however, seen refugiums that where filled with macroalgae that had copious amounts of ‘pods living in and around the macro.

So my question is: would Concept 2; A) grow ‘pods, and B) grow enough for three Mandarins and a possible Six-line? Or is there another solution that I’m overlooking or someone far more brilliant has come up with? I was also thinking that I could drop the Six-line which I would think would be far more effective by eliminating the competitive pressures than getting only one Mandarin and one wrasse.

Moved to Anthony's forum since you wanted his input...

Trevor, something you need to keep in mind, everything you are considering has pros and cons. Mojo used to refer to a "house of cards", when adding more components to a set-up. If one card falls out of place, will the whole house come down?

I think you need to really decide what your objective is. Is your refugium going to be primarily for pod production for the fish? Or, is it for nitrate reduction? Do you think you are going to have a nitrate problem?

Here is a quote for you: (from remote dsb)

if your principal goal is nitrate reduction, then indeed I'd recommend a rdsb over a Chaeto refugium. The former being far more reliable and stable. But the Chaeto does offer other benefits such as its great service as a matrix for growing microcrustaceans to feed corals and fishes.

As for paths the nutrients take... its a bit complex but may fairly be stated as dsb=reduction, chaeto=absorption. The former includes processes that alter organic matter that it (theoretically at least ) can be exported from the system as nitrogen gas, for example. But the latter (absorption) necessarily keeps the nutrients in the system banked as biomass if/until you harvest them... or worse, released with algae decay or die-off.

 

[Jobiwan]

I'm doing a hybrid fuge, easier for me than trying to sort through all the info and opinions out there. I have a RDSB and a cryptic (unlighted) rubble chamber. I just started this, the DSB side has some chaeto I threw in primarily to innoculate the system with pods, brittle stars, worms, etc, in a few months it will be replaced with seagrass, so the rubble will be the primary pod producer, but if you've got chaeto you really don't need rubble. I have run the DSB/chaeto combo on several systems and that has worked well for me, it seems to me that might be a good way for you to go, if there is any reason why you shouldn't grow chaeto in your RDSB I'd be interested in hearing it, although I can't buy into the "competing for nutrients" kinda thinking. Seems like the "minimal processing/longer lasting DSB" combined with chaeto for nutrient export and pod production is a great option...

Here are a couple of photos of my setup, 55 gal RDSB, 20 gal rubble chamber...
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[Scooterman]

I can't buy into the "competing for nutrients" kinda thinking.

Where you hear that & what was it pertaining to?

 

[Jobiwan]

Hey Scooty, there was a thread on RC a year ago where one of the experts (he thought he was anyway) claimed that if you had 0 nitrates your DSB would never establish itself, so that using macros for nutrient export would hinder your DSB from establishing, and that you should therefor only have one or the other on any given system rather than having them "competing". I thought the basic concept that you had to have testable nitrate levels to start up a DSB was a flawed premise, and the competing thing made no sense to me (you shouldn't be able to set up 2 different macro fuges on one system using this logic, wouldn't want them competing after all)of course neither of us had any real data, so it ended up being one opinion against another, as often happens in the world of reefkeeping, doesn't it?

 

[Scooterman]

Ahh makes sense to me, you always have enough left overs to feed the animals

 

[Jobiwan]

You got that right Scooty, no matter how hard I try there is always leftovers, thank gawd for detritivores....

 

[MarineDreamer]

Ahh makes sense to me, you always have enough left overs to feed the animals

I was thinking along the same lines as you two; that if I did a RDSB, that it would develop as the food input would allow.

Moved to Anthony's forum since you wanted his input...

Thanks Nikki

Trevor, something you need to keep in mind, everything you are considering has pros and cons. Mojo used to refer to a "house of cards", when adding more components to a set-up. If one card falls out of place, will the whole house come down?

I think you need to really decide what your objective is. Is your refugium going to be primarily for pod production for the fish? Or, is it for nitrate reduction? Do you think you are going to have a nitrate problem?

You always have the best links; and never any jibes about using the search function! You're the best.

The primary function of the refuge will be to grow foods for the fishes. I do not believe that I will have a nitrate problem as I am sitting on a hundred and eighty pounds of LR and I am willing to add more as Aquascaping/Aesthetics/Space will allow. That being said, my mental concept at this point is try and stock the tank pretty heavily with three species of Centropyge at three each of each species. Plus the Mandarins, two anemone fishes, some gobies, and various Zebrasoma tangs. I was going to go with a SSB of about an inch to two inches in the display. Flow in the display will be handled by 4500 GPH CLS spray bar which will also be the frame work for the LR, four Vortech, and the sump return is rated at 1400 GPH before the head loss, coming through two wavey seas returns. But I hadn’t planned on anything for flow in the refuge other than the return.
I like idea of a hybrid refuge, which is what I was thinking I could do with a DSB and algae to grow macro crustations and accomplish nitrate reduction, and nutrient export.

if there is any reason why you shouldn't grow chaeto in your RDSB I'd be interested in hearing it,

I would love to apply this methodology to my refuge, my concerns are 1)that it wouldn’t produce enough ‘pods; 2) that the DSB wouldn't function as such or fail to due lack of flow or 3) the marcoalgea would hinder the DSB.

Thoughts anyone?

 

[Scooterman]

Once you get pods to reproduce in your system then you should eventually have enough & more for what you want. I see no reason why not to do it that way, I'd run a MH over the top of it with a reverse lighting cycle. I would allow your design to isolate equipment or the whole thing If something like Nikki mentioned would happen, also If you need to modify it to get optimal performance of what you want.The DSB would basically act as a binder to hold nutrients for whatever you grow & at the same time would do some nitrifying. I'd throw in some sand critters also, maybe even a goby or two, get nasty with it Saying this because your working with such a large tank as the fuge & you can expect some things to work & some to fail, If you prepared for that I see it as a learning experience also.

 

[Jobiwan]

I have both rubble and chaeto fuges Trevor, (well established, not the ones pictured), there is no difference in pod production, they love messing around in the chaeto. The neatest thing about the rubble is that they are more visible, kinda an underwater ant farm. As for hindering your DSB, all I can give you is my opinion, which is that it won't interfer with it, but I really can't say for sure... I'd go with Scooty's opinion, he knows his stuff on fuges...

 

[seabeaver]

Great discussion-I love da fuge. FWIW-here's my experience...
I had a multi-purpose 25g display fuge on my 55g reef in which I wanted to farm pods and other benefitial bugs (worms, stars, etc), export nutrients via macro growth (and removal), and try my hand at denitrification. My DSB was about ~8" deep, consisting of ~3" of sand, ~2" of <1/16" gravel, ~2" of 1/4" gravel, and rubble on top of that. I also threw in ~ 15 lbs of LR for aquascaping. My reasoning...fine sand with little flow to create an anaerobic layer for denitrification, increasingly largers grains to get some flow to the bottom, and larger grains/rubble to grow pods. Using a small pump placed in my display tank where I figured detritous would be most likely to settle, I pulled about 25 gallons/hour into the fuge. I only used 2x55w 50/50 CF for lighting, but in retrospect, I think a low wattage mh would look a LOT better. If you decide to reverse light, you'd also get the benefits of added pH stabilization, as stated on the previous post.

In the end, my fuge looked cool, grew vast quantities of chaeto, hatched pods by the hundreds, had plentiful brittle stars and bristle worms, and was a great tank to throw all the soft corals like shrooms, xenia, kenya trees, etc that I didn't really want taking over my hard coral display. These guys reproduced readily, and where fun to give to newbies at reef club meetings and swaps.

When I set up the next system, I think I'll stick a plenum underneath with a bulkhead on the bottom with a valved drain to remove detritous and flush the DSB once/year or so. Yeah, this'll botch the anaerobic layer, but it'll re-establish, and hopefully keep any phosphorus build up in the DSB under control. Plus, the chaeto arguably eats up the N03 as affectively as an anaerobic layer (my nitrates were always 0 in this system). I'd also like to figure out a way to get some pods back into my display tank without being chopped up en route. My fuge fed into my sump, so perhaps a return with a low-shear (sp?) impeller?

Just my .02, good luck!

 

[Anthony Calfo]

sorry to chime in late here... work and travel have kept me away from most message board fun for a while

We must be clear here in that by "pods" for your mandarinfish, you mean copepods (very hard to grow enough in refugia for one mandarinfish let alone three plus a voracious wrasse).

Amphipods o the other hand are easy to grow in quantity. unfortunately... over 90% of the mandarins diet is copepods.

My advice is livefood culture copepods outside the tank. Its easy, albeit tedious. Many great DIY plans and now starter cultures available commercially.

 

[Anthony Calfo]

ahhh, yes... and impeller shear: no worries - its a joke truly (non-issue... debunked long ago)

 

[ladygator]

Links to information on growing copepods

Anthony - That is a good point. If you would like to learn more about growing copepods, I have written an article on wetwebmedia.com and have provided a podcast through www.talkingreef.com. I also have information on my website.

Here are the respective links:

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume_2/cav2i1/Pods/pods.htm

http://www.talkingreef.com/forums/podcast-episodes/2140-copepods-podcast-episode-69-a.html

http://www.oceanpods.com/faq.html

Hope this information helps those of you out there considering starting a copepod population to feed your mandarin.

Adelaide

 

[Anthony Calfo]

great thanks for this input, Adelaide!

and as a bit of an aside (myapologies for doing it here... but most of my Pm functions are turned off because I can barely keep up with email <G>)...

but I wanted to chat with you about articles/ads/pr for you in my reef journal - which has an aquaculture and fisheries column. Can I trouble you to email me (same old email for me... or get it again by the contact button on Readingtrees.com) and send me your address? I'll mail you some sample copies and info.

grazie!