How often if ever? Is the question.

[MBryant]

Wondering if any of you ever clean your refugium. " live rock with cheato ". No bio balls. Ive had this tank up for 16 months and never cleaned it. Should I change the sand and rinse off the live rock or just leave it alone lol

 

[ghellin]

I personally always do my water changed from my skimmer section in my sump, I think shawne may do the same.

 

[bobkill]

No real exErience here but sounds like a sink hole of work and fleeting junk that will float every were

 

[MBryant]

Well I figured one would turn off the return pump first.

 

[*reefermadness*]

You could, but it may be more work than you anticipate. How deep is the sand bed? I run my fuge area of my sump bare bottom with rubble rock and a powerhead pointed at the bottom to stur up any detritus and keep it suspended in the water column. I know you cant do that with sand on the bottom so if I were you I would just invest in a large amount of nassarius snails to keep the sand clean and maybe a few other CUC snails to work on the live rock. So long as you dont have piles of detritus on your rocks and sand you should be fine. Hope this helps. PS my tank has been up for over two years now and I have never had to actually "clean" out my fuge. Just my 2 cents.

 

[cjilge]

I have aprox 8'' sand bed in my fuge with some ruble rock and probably close to 5-6 diff macro's. I only pluck algae as it grows and clean the glass about once every couple of months other than that the fuge is left alone. I do have a couple of bl hermits and astrea snails in there and 2 tiger cowrie's in the sump which can get in the fuge from time to time. I try not to disturb anything in the fuge.

 

[Lightsluvr]

Wondering if any of you ever clean your refugium. " live rock with cheato ". No bio balls. Ive had this tank up for 16 months and never cleaned it. Should I change the sand and rinse off the live rock or just leave it alone lol

I have a 50G Rubbermaid which serves as my Refugium. From a basketball size piece, the tank is absolutely stuffed with chaeto. (I need to thin it out!)
There is maybe 100# of LR in the bottom, no sand. I have never cleaned it and it is my Copepod farm.

If you feel the need to "rinse" your LR, do it in a bucket of salt water from your tank, use a small powerhead to flush debris off the surface, but don't overdo it. The surface "goo" is a critical part of the bacterial engine that filters the water.

JME.

LL

 

[*reefermadness*]

LL you are spot on. My fuge works the same way and I love it. If you dont want to just throw you chaeto away, I think you could probably get rid of it at Custom Reef, I'm taking up a good size chunk of mine there tomorrow. You might even be able to get a frag or fish out of it.

 

[danielbui23]

I always add I small powerhead to one of my sections of one of my sumps to keep debris from settling seems to help a lot. I have also heard other doing this to the over flow if you have a large enough over flow. My overflow has enough room for a mag 7 but that is a little over kill.

 

[blakers82]

I don't mess with my fuge. No sand bed, but a good amount of live rock, GSP, and chaeto. I have a powerhead in there somewhere . The top can get looking really nasty too. I say to let it soak and do its thing.