Sooo.. DSB or LR rubble and chaeto in 'fuge?

Well, I've done a good bit of research and def. want a fuge section in my new sump.
As I understand it, I can go with a DSB and low flow as a means to reduce nitrates and give copepods and other little critters a place to grow.
However, an area with some live rock rubble and maybe a ball of chaeto would also accomplish the same thing, no? Only I would have to add a light to keep the chaeto alive and growing.
So is one preferable to another?
Thanks for your input,
Jan

 

Why not both? itll be like a mini aquarium in your fuge, basically thats all they are. just with no fish. im prob going to have a DSB in mine 7" or so and some rubble & cheato

 

Only reason not to do both- from what I understand a DSB needs slow flow to be effective, whereas chaeto needs higher flow.

 

I run a dsb with live rock and a ton of macros. I vote for all the above.

 

A DSB needs to breath. It needs to be circulated by the infauna that lives in it. Rock rubble in a slow flow fuge just collects ditritus and chokes off the DSB. You don't want both. If you want a DSB then let it be a good DSB. Pods will grow with or with out rubble. If you want rubble keep the compartment clean and flush it out from time to time to keep it from trapping too much poop. A bare bottom sump collects enough as it is.

 

If you want to grow pods, you want lower flow. They cannot thrive in a high flow environment.The denitrifying capability of a DSB is a function of the anaerobic zones (low oxygen levels). I have not read that this is a function of flow. It is a function of the depth of the sand bed and the size of the sand grains. The smaller the sand size, the shallower the DSB can be and still provide anaerobic zones for the denitrifying bacteria.

Different Macro algae prefer different levels of flow. As you said, Cheato prefers high flow, but it grew fine in my moderate flow refugium (I had to cull it every month). Some Macro algae also require a fair amount of trace elements like Iron. Some argue that Miracle Mud is a better substrate for some types of macro algae due to the leaching of trace elements and that it provides denitrifying zones in a much shallower bed (~1"). I cannot verify this, but my next refugium will be miracle mud since I want to see how well it works.

When I had a DBS with Cheato and only moderate flow, my nitrates were undetectable despite heavy feeding. After I took the sump offline, my nitrates when up (15ppm) and I got outbreaks of hair algae in the DT. I don't know whether it was the Cheato or the DBS or both, but it definitely worked for me. I also had a few pieces of Live Rock rubble in there as well. [edit: but they did get a lot of detris, so I would not add them again]

 

At the end of the day, it all works.

Me? I have a DSB in my refugium that is layered with sand, crushed coral and mud. I grow macro’s and run 10% of my DT’s water through it per hour – this is what works well for me.

I went with the slow method for a reason – the same exact reason why we set up other parts of our systems. We try and copy mother nature as best we can. Our protein skimmers mimic waves crashing on sandy beaches so my refugium is set to mimic the florida everglades (less the gaters!)

I grow several macro algae in the refugium including chaeto which most think will only grow under high flow – perhaps it will “grow better” but it does the job I need it to. I have bubble algae and cyano bacteria in my refugium too. Most importantly, in a separate section immediately following my refugium is a section of live rock rubble which gravity feeds back to my tank. You can see the bugs happily swimming in there, and a small clean up crew that naturally found its way here keeps things clean – so no big build of Detritus.

So the moral of the story? Set up your refugium your way and see what works for you and your system. In my opinion there is no wrong way to eat a reese’s …. err, set up a refugium