Pests migrating from refugium

[Doug]

Originally Posted by Jaws

I have a question though. When you're curing dry rock, most people suggest seeding it with live rock. When you seed your dry rock with live rock, don't you run the risk of transferring whatever unknown pests could be deeply embedded into the live rock?

Yup, which is why I wont add any live to mine this time. At least try to keep the pest crap out I guess...

[Jaws]

My main interest is to introduce a thriving pod population, which I can probably do through adding chaeto to the refugium, and I plan on having a dark tank specifically for sponges. I'm just not entirely sure how you'd introduce those without introducing anything else.

Sorry if i'm hijacking. It should be relative to Doug's questions though too.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by Jaws

My main interest is to introduce a thriving pod population, which I can probably do through adding chaeto to the refugium, and I plan on having a dark tank specifically for sponges. I'm just not entirely sure how you'd introduce those without introducing anything else.

Sorry if i'm hijacking. It should be relative to Doug's questions though too.

Not at all. Good discussion.

Im worried about my mandarin in the new tank for awhile also, plus I wanted to get her a mate. Seeing as how I can use my old rock anyways, guess they will stay there for a bit.

[Jaws]

Originally Posted by Doug

Im worried about my mandarin in the new tank for awhile also, plus I wanted to get her a mate. Seeing as how I can use my old rock anyways, guess they will stay there for a bit.

Ya the longer you can wait the better with any mandarin. I wouldn't add a mandarin until I could see pods crawling all over the glass. They eat all day long and will kill a pod population pretty quickly if it's not large enough to self sustain.

[Doug]

So I cancelled my refugium and will drill my 30g for an overflow to make one. It will sit higher than the sump and drain into the return section.

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by Doug

So I cancelled my refugium and will drill my 30g for an overflow to make one. It will sit higher than the sump and drain into the return section.

I've always wanted to do that. Multi-tiered systems seem like such a good idea to me, using gravity to do do most of the work for you if you've got the space to do it. In my dream system I'd have a frag tank, a refugium, and a separate large vessel that could be isolated and drained for water changes all arranged in a cascade and powered by gravity

[Doug]

Ya, I decided to go with it instead of the refugium Jeff was building me. Save some money on the stupid dropping dollar...

My 30 should be good. It will be a sort of refugium and sort of frag tank. As the sumps now going in the next room, I have lots of room to do that.

Jeffs putting a return coupling for it on my sump and a manifold off my Mag 12 return pump with a feed for it.