refugium

[Amadod2]

looking to start a refugium in my sump, no sand just cheato, for all of you who have one or tired one, does it work in helping to lower phosphates, and i was thinking of using a led strip, would that work?? im limited in space in my sump area.

[Amadod2]

here is a link to one light i fund, i have purchased led from them before and they did the job, im just not sure if this will work?

http://www.aquastyleonline.com/produ...ium-light.html

[jordsyke]

My refugium grew chaeto like crazy and worked wonders on my nitrates, but did not do much with my phosphates

[Amadod2]

Are your phosphates normally low? How much lower do you think the cheato lowered them by?

[jason604]

The ball of chaeto in my refug haven't seem to have grown at all in 7 months. Using cfl 5500k floodlights. Dunno if it helping but my nitrate is pretty low considering the amount of fishes I hav in my tank

[straightrazorguy]

I've got a refugium full of algae and zero nitrates. My phosphates were high until I started running ROWAphos.

Then I started reading about the Redfield ratio and learned that both carbon and Nitrogen are limiting my phosphate removal. That's why a refugium will never lower your phosphates to zero unless you are willing to add carbon and nitrates to your tank. But, chances are they will use up all the available nitrates.

Here's some reading:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=2109768

[straightrazorguy]

PS. If you want cheato or red macro algae, I have lots.

[Amadod2]

What does red nacho alge do?

[straightrazorguy]

I don't know about nacho algae but red macro algae remove nitrates and phosphjates, just like cheato, but they are red....

[monocus]

led strip won't work.there is very little radiant energy.i make my own leds using 1 watt red,blue and a few whites to grow algae