Questions about refugiums

[JohnM99]

I use a 45 gal low with a bunch of Miracle Mud, leftover sand, a bunch of live rocks, and then I planted a stem of Mangrove, and a handful of Chaetomorpha.

Chaetomorpha kind of disappeared - (probably DOA) - but then some Caulerpa just kind of showed up.

I now feed my 20' tall bamboo hedge a steady diet of caulerpa ripped out of the fuge. It looks like a disgusting mess, but it is teeming with pods and all sorts of weird little critters, which wash up into my return and into my tank. The caulerpa stays put, and does seem to do a good job.

Interestingly, once my flow through the fuge was accidentally shut down to a trickle - and I got a huge growth of hair algae in my main tank. Once I realized what the problem was, and opened up the flow again, the hair algae declined steadily. So, it seems to work. I would rather have had Chaeto, and I know caulerpa is harder to get rid of than ........(pick your cliche - maybe relatives from the Prairies in January).

The isn't pretty, except to a discerning few.