Refuge or Biopellets
 

Ok so nitrates and nitrites are still zero but I'm sure that ain't going to last. I have a bunch of LR in my refuge area with a grow light that runs for about 8 hours a day. There is very little algae, lots of very tiny shrimp swimming around. Tank has been running for a year.

Tank will primarily be SPS with a medium fish load.

So question is.....

Take all the live rock out and add Biopellets with a reactor or put some Cheato in the refuge see what happens. I have the reactor and pellets already, bought it early on.

What do you think? Thanks!

Pellets all the way.....

Why?

if you have a big enough refugium, then refugium.

i run a 30 gallon remote refugium lite 24/7 and i keep my phosphates and nitrates at 0

and theres no chance of anything going crazy and crashing my system

Refuge is large enough I believe so just wondering which way to go.

Tagging along.

How do you know the proper way to size your refugium for your setup?

Because....they are easy. They take little to no maintenance, very little space and you can't overdose. Did I mention they work.

Yes a refugium is not a bad idea but you need a large one which grows lots of algae to do the work that bio-pellets would do. Maybe a refug half the size of your display. But its hard to say because it depends on how well it is set up and how much algae it will grow (which can be inconsistent). A refug will take more electricity as well in lighting and pumps.

also tagging along for future reference! I'm doing a sump/refuge in the near future

You can overdose bio pellets. Then they strip your system and corals bleach.

Plus if you don't have a large enough skimmer to take out the byproduct of the pellets it'll cause algae growth.

With a large fuge you can never go wrong. It regulates it self. If there's more nutrients, cheato grows faster.

Refuge all the way Just imo, 1/3 your display should do. Algae is such a powerful thing.

Have to compare extra electric with cost of pellets as well.

And with a refugium, you need lots of lights and maybe some flow, if you're doing chaeto.
I have BP and live rock rubble in the sump. I have tons of mysis, and pods living there, too.:biggrin:

Mysis? Live?

Not for everybody. IMO they are not what there cracked out to be.

Why have the hassles that can come with pellets, you may get lucky you may not. A good fuge works the best.
Husbandry, that's what it is all about, you control your tank not the other way around.

Not true, CF's are very effectient at growing Cheato. True on the flow, and the more it tumbles the beter.

If you going to do biopellets i would really look at the new reef dynamics biopellet reactor. big step above the others

I have 2 24watt t5ho bulbs on my fuge with painfully slow flow. Probably less than 100gph and my cheato grows like crazyyyyy. Literally

I run vertex pellets , GFO, and a fuge. So I say both. A 23 watt 6500K home depot CF bulb grows cheato great.

I'd really love to do refuge but if it needs to be sized to a third of your overall aquarium size that would be a 60 gallon one for me. I'm not sure I could find the room. I was originally thinking 10-15 but would that just be a wasted effort?

I use a 30 gallon tall tank for a 180 gallon display. It works perfectly

Sorry to confuse you, but I use 1/3 rd on my tank, with no skimmer and using tap water.

I should stop giving advice.

I am a firm believer that pellets do work if done properly, so thats the way I'd go. Why remove the rock though? If you have the room, keep the rock and add the pellets...slowly.

I do both. Your live rock is very important to your tank.And after reading this I am going to feed phyto.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-07/eb/index.php

If you tank is already well balanced you must be doing many things right already like diligent water changes.

You should run biopellets and a fuge, I had that set up for almost a year running but now am going to get rid of the fuge and run GFO.

I find that the pellets take care of the nitrates and abit of the phosphates but not all the phosphates, the main reason why I am going to run GFO.

Biopellets can be a good thing or bad, I've heard some stories of it screwing up tanks and when they stopped using it the tank was more stable, abit of cyano can pop up here and there is one good example.

Even in a reactor the pellets can sometimes clump in dead spots so quarterly maintanence is a must. Clean the mulch and clumped pellets in a separate saltwater bucket. Also add abit mb7 2 times a month to keep a healthy biological bacteria.

Some pellets need lots of flow while others like the Warner marine say less flow. I am running the vertex pellets now but will be switching to the Warner marine pellets in the new year!

Thanks for all the replies..... Some really good points by all.

I'm planning to go with bio pellets when Nitrates/Nitrites start increasing.

Merry X-mas!

My Vote is do both if possible, even if you can add a samll refugium to your system you wil help it out, it sdoesn't HAVE to be 30% or more of your total water volume.

I run a thirty gallon cube fuge, with a biopellet reactor, and zeo. I figure you can't go wrong by adding a refugium of any size. Throw extra rock in it, let the small critters explode in growth and numbers, or leave it dark and let the sponges and filter feeders take it over.

I know of a person who used the pellets and bleached out his tank, i also know of a person that used them and got freat results, I decided to split the difference and use 3/4 of the zeo that you are supposed to use, and 1/2 the amount of pellets. It seems to be working for me, just enough so that my colors are super vibrant, but most importantly, not too much so that no algae grows.

Try both if you can