Refugium setup

I am going to route some of the water from my overflow to the fuge and then let it gravity feed into the sump. I was planning on cheato but want to see if anyone has other macros that they like.

Do you use sand and how much if you do?

 

Sounds good.

There is only a handful of Macros that are recommended. Cheato, Caulerpa, Ulva, Halmidia.... Obviously, show algae tanks are different. Some folks grow macros to feed their Tangs, but that is not exporting nutrients, that is reusing them.

I have 5" DSB in my fuge. Lots of worms. I do not filter my water.. it's raw from the tank. I was concerned about it getting too dirty and some folks say DSB getting too dirty cause them to go bad. Thought about a CUC but nothing really. I finally stuck a Sand Sifter Star in there it clean it up. If it starts starving I'll feed it to my Harlequin.

 

Thanks

 

Here is a good article.

How Sandbeds REALLY Work by Ronald L. Shimek, Ph.D. - Reefkeeping.com

 

It is good, something that I am looking to get going again.

 

I agree. My chaeto and DSB does all that I wanted out of my fuge. It exports nitrates and phosphates just as I had hoped. My chaeto grows faster when there is an excess of nutrients and then grows more slowly when my levels are in check. I've not used mangroves for 2 reasons. 1) i don't see the need; 2) seems like alot of trouble for little gain.

my 2 cents.

 

I read you need 1 per gallon in the system for them to be effective.

 

one mangrove per gallon?

 

Yeah, couldn't believe it.

 

Whoa!! If you needed a reason not to bother with mangroves...there you go!!!

Chaeto is easy and does the trick. I see no reason to complicate things further. You know what you're doing.