new basement sump refuge?

[Bluephish13]

last week i decided to finally try to plumb my tank to the basement, well i am just about done. tried to just keep it simple. I have my sump area in the middle, left is the fuge, and on the right will be a frag tank. all 20 longs. while i was doing that i decided to add a bunch of outlets above the sump, and put the tank on its own breaker, and get a new panel. I still have a lot of little stuff to do like the automating.

Anyways got any ideas what i can do with the fuge tank.

do i just fill it with cheato and let it become a nasty swamp?

or

MY thought was to stack a few pieces of rock on the right side of the tank up and just sticking out of the water to make a exposed area. Then fill with a few inches of sand (2"). Then plant most the tank with mangroves. (in the sand and rocks sticking out.) add a few snails and hermits.

So one question is how would a tank full of mangroves preform vs a tank full of cheato?. my guess is the cheato swamp does a better job.

so if i go the mangrove tank route Any cool gobies or anything that would enjoy swimming threw a mangrove tank? Also any places locally to get mangroves?

please give me your thoughts what i should do with the tank?

i know my stand sucks lol

 

[E_rock]

I like your idea. That would be really cool to see. Maybe do half and half? I cant really answer any of your questions though

 

[SkiFletch]

The idea sounds cool with one caveat though. Mangroves tend to like a LOT of light. Not sure how well they'd do under a CFL

 

[tmz]

Magroves are cool but high maintenace, reltivetive to a bare bottom chaeto fuge. I kept seahorses in a chaeto tank,fwiw.

 

[mr86mister]

I'd have to go with a Chaeto refuge. It's easier to take care of and you will always be outgrowing it and wanting to get rid of the Chaeto. They are also Copepod breeding grounds and you will easily get thousands of Copepods running around in there.

 

[Bluephish13]

tmz what makes mangroves difficult? One problem i have solved, the room needed that makes them not ideal for under the tank. I can always look for a small MH, or add more cfls to solve lighting issues.

pods
well i no longer have my mandarin i had for 4-5 yrs. He got in a battle with a monster bristle worm a few months ago and died from all the bristles stuck in it. so my pod demand is not as high anymore. With the frag tank, fuge(no matter what it is) tank ,sump tank, and display tank i have no doubt pods will find a place to breed. So pod production is not my main focus. In fact my po4 reactor seems to double as a in line copepod breeder.

po4 reduction
my previous fuge held about 5 gal and some chaeto. I really only need to match the po4 consumption of my previous 5 gal fuge. I previously read .01 on the hanna(not the checker).

I think ill just experiment. Do the chaeto ball but keep it trimmed up, and ill try just a few mangroves and see how they do be for i go all out on the idea. Then if they don't grow toss em and let the chaeto take over.


Still anyone know a place locally to get mangroves? I know petsmart has bamboo, cant remember if they had any mangroves.