Refugium idea. Advice and constructive criticism wanted.

[risin]

These are my plans for a refugium to replace my current wet/dry bioball setup. My goals for this refugium are:

- remove nitrates w/ chaeto in fuge
- have a place for pods to thrive so my future mandarin can be fat+happy
- keep my PH more stable
- increase water capacity of system
- create a more consistant environment for my skimmer

a couple other ideas I may work into the fuge is a narrow, high flow channel for a few mangroves (Edit: no mangroves) and I have been reading about the benefits of having contained Apstasia; I want to add a small chamber with a float door so that all water that leaves the chamber will go through a UV sterilizer to prevent apstasia from getting out of the sump.

I am looking for advice so I don't make a big design flaw and waste my time. Thanks in advance.

 

[morgan]

that sachem pouch may stop pods from moving to the display tank
also mangroves wont denitrafie as well as cheat so i wouldnt bother about it plus u need mh to grow it your idea looks good though
i wouldnt risk the apstasia my lfs had that sort of thing in a small tank that he kept a harlequin shrimp in it eventully spread and is now quiet bad although he dosent seem to mind or hasnt had time to do anything about it

u should try a plennum system for the sand bed in the fuge

im in the process of planing a very large fuge which will resemble a sea grass bed with a dragonet or 2 and sum inverts that would benift from this kinda tank setup
im very intrested in fuges at the moment so i will tag along with this thread

 

[mmkeeper]

The trend is to go without rubble rock and mud. Just the cheato.

 

[risin]

I want to have a place pods to thrive so I can keep a constant supply of food for a mandarin. It was my understanding that substrate and rock are neccessary for pods to live.

As for the seachem bag I am going to move that over to the skimmer side of the setup.

 

[jakleen]

your ideas are good. u can even use live sand by caib sea ,mud is expensive. 4-6 inches of live sand and cheatotomorpha algae are good enough. if you can afford mud go ahead ,but truly it is not necessary.after 2 years every couple of years ,you have to remove some of the sand from ref . and add new sand. i think with mud it will be to expensive. this is my opinion. good luck. jakleen

 

[DonW]

Mangroves are not worth the effort. They are a nice house plant to look at but thats about it. You dont need sand, mud or rubble, its going to turn into a nutrient sink unless that fuge is going to be much bigger than the pictures scale. The chaeto will be full of pods in no time. If you want nutrient export then you will need to make growing conditions more for the chaeto. This means alot more flow so that you can keep the chaeto moving.
If your doing this just to keep a manderine you may be dissapointed. It doesnt take long for a single manderine to wipe out an entire tank full of pods.
I'd put in a large dedicated fuge if your ultimate goal is long term sucess with manderines..


Don

 

[risin]

The refugium portion of the sump will be at the very least 6 gallons, but I want to make it as large as I can. My display tank is 55gal, how large of a fuge would you recommend? Also, I thought it was beneficial to have rock in the sump, but it seems that I am wrong about this.

I am not doing this just for the mandarines. I have to say that the top reasons for doing this are to break down nitrates and maintain a more stable PH by having the fuge light on at night.

Is that all I need to do to make the growing conditions more for the chaeto, more water flow? How much water flow are we talking about 50gph, 100gph? I have read that you only the fuge to cycle it's capacity a couple times per hoiur... so I'm looking at 10-20gph.

 

[DonW]

The refugium portion of the sump will be at the very least 6 gallons, but I want to make it as large as I can. My display tank is 55gal, how large of a fuge would you recommend? Also, I thought it was beneficial to have rock in the sump, but it seems that I am wrong about this.

Not wrong. It just takes flow to keep the detritus from building up.

Don

 

[risin]

geez, you were fast with that response I editted my previous post and added a few more questions; please take a look.

 

[Reefdaddy1]

Miracle mud requires very high flow for a ref. I would avoid it and increase the fuge size. Increase flow as well. Slow flow will work but much better results from higher flow Fuges.