Snails in fuge?

well, I just added some dry sand I inherited from a friend.
over a year after, this sump is full of spawing snails, pods algae detritus worms rocks stars and what not.

leave life to its own, it will be snails there if it is habitable.

 

I used the airline hose to get the detritus off te glass bottom in the sump not off the sand. Did I do ok or mess it up?

 

I think you have done quite well ndtechie05 - if your sump has a partial glass bottom and it was accumulating some detritus (totally common) it's a great idea IMO to vacuum it up . . . but that doesnt have much to do with snails in a fuge . . .

 

I put a host of macro’s on top of about an 8” sandbed (layered, sand, mud, garf grunge, sand etc) – no cuc what-so-ever.

A refugium is a swamp and as such you should (in my humble opinion) don’t mess with it, don’t bother it at all. The refugium will take care of itself – snails, hermits bugs, worms – its like “the field of dreams”, if you build it they will come. Nature takes care of itself – all you need to do is build it, light it and perk water through it at whatever rate is going to work for you (I prefer the 10% of DT per hour….nice and slow). Your tank will seed the refugium with what it needs.

I personally feel poking at the refugium for whatever reason is a mistake as you are disturbing the swamp that shouldn’t be disturbed.

As for the sump - I have a pump on a timer in my sump, it fires up for 15 minutes every other night and mixes it into the tank.....filter feeders love it. Just a thought - or you can clean it as you are doing

 

I think I just found a use for that extra powerhead I have sitting around . . . .that's genius!

 

I do have to say the powerhead idea does sound good