refugium

digital-audiophile · #1 12-31-2005, 02:27 AM

Will the chaeto just stay in a ball and not spread around if I do that? I'm game to give it a try in my new tank if you've had luck with it.

Willow · #2 12-31-2005, 04:33 AM

it will just grow out in a big mat which is fine, as long as it's sucking up nutrients.

BCOrchidGuy · #3 01-05-2006, 07:13 PM

A good refugium should be the same size as the display tank. Refugium is a place to grow pods, or algaes etc, I used to keep 4 cleaner shrimp in my 40 gallon refugium and with all the larvae they put out my main tank got lots of food. Another thing with a refugium is, if you can, put it on an alternating light cycle, IE when your main tank is dark have your refugium lights on.

Keeping a refugium this size isn't practical for most people, I was lucky to have the room but I don't have it now. I'm considering a 15 gallon refugium over my 54 but I'm not sure I want to go that route.

Doug

Funky_Fish14 · #4 01-06-2006, 12:06 AM

I have a 23g sump/fuge over my 75g tank. There is about a 7-8 gallon section blocked off for heaters and skimmer, the rest is a fuge with LR, Cheato, and grape caulerpa. Before I tore it down, I had an insane amount of pod growth in there.... I had copepods, amphipods, zooplankton, mysid shrimp, etc... breeding it it. I have an interesting overflow setup and thus it allows pods to flow down into the tank more easily. I also found the nutrient export slightly beneficial since before I had a really bad skimmer, haha. I still wish I could have gone with a bigger fuge for more algae growing space.

Chris