Opinion on Horizontally split LR/macro fuge

[sjm817]

I have an existing 65G fuge that is now BB and chaeto only. Its lit by a pair of 39W T5 HO 6500K bulbs and I do get very good growth. I'm thinking I want to try something else. Instead of all Chaeto, have the bottom 1/2 LR, and the top 1/2 Chaeto.

When I've run LR in a fuge in the past, I didn't like that the macro would get tangled in in the rock. I'm thinking the divider would keep that from happening and also keep the LR section darker. I was thinking of using egg crate with some plastic gutter guard tied to it for a finer screening.

Here is the top down layout of the sump and fuge. This is in place. The fuge is fed off the return, so not a lot of detritus gets sent to the fuge.

Here is what I'm thinking of. One idea is to bring the flow into the fuge below the eggcrate. It would rise up though the chaeto to the overflow. I would use a couple of Mj900s (already using them for this) in the chaeto area for local flow.

The other would be to have the flow come into the chateo 1/2 and use the MJ900 below to keep the water moving some. Pros/Cons? Any thoughts on this plan?

 

[turtle]

I`m doing something similar , I just stated it a few weeks ago so I`m not sure of it`s benefits yet. I just did it because i didn`t like having all the rock in my display it looked to cluttered .

 

[sjm817]

Thanks for the reply. Can you provide any details on how you set it up?

 

[landlord]

I run something almost identical. I have a 12x12x20 high fuge. The bottom 15 inches are tennisball sized chunks of liverock. The top section is chaeto.

I do not feed the water in at the liverock layer however. Simply fed from the top by a spraybar and gravity fed back to the sump.

I also do not have the sections separated as you depict. The chaeto grows on top and it blocks enough light to keep the bottom in darkness. Not to mention that a tight packing of liverock will prevent light penetration as well.

I cannot speak to any direct quantifiable benefits of this. It does however have the neat side effect of creating an anaerobic zone in the bottom three inches of the fuge. There is a visible line of what I think are bacteria at this level. I believe that the same principles of a DSB are going on here because below the 3 to 4 inch mark the liverock turns to gray/black color and seems to be fed upon by whatever nasties are living down there.

The organisms that live in this lower layer are simply bizarre. Weird worms the occasional pod. Without any direct flow you wouldn't think that there would be any oxygen down there but there seems to be enough for these critters and not enough to support this bacteria with does not grow higher up.

Dread is the day that this fuge gets stirred up! I am sure that the bottom is a gnarly nasty mix of Nitrogen and other chemical badguys (possibly sulphur, who knows).

In any case the DT tank has undectable Nitrates and the SPS grow very nicely.

Good Luck

landlord

 

[landlord]

I have inserted a doctored up picture to give you a visual.

The Yellow box outlines the fuge

Above the Green Line is the chaeto, below the Green line is the liverock.

The Red line is approximately where I can see the line of "Bacteria" where everything below it is gray to black in color with a whole different set of organisms than above it.

Hope this inspires you!

--landlord

 

[sjm817]

Thanks!
Do you (or turtle) run any sand on the bottom? I was thinking of maybe putting a couple of inches of sand in as well. Maybe it should have the bottom section deeper?

How do you feed the fuge? From return, drain, or other?

 

[landlord]

I have not put any sand on the bottom, but I can say that in the anaerobic zone of mine whatever is down there has (in 1.25 years) created about a half inch of substrate. It is probably a mix of detritus, carbon / phosban dust fines, etc. I can say that this substrate layer is dark gray if not black in color.

This fuge is fed from a small tee in my return line dialed waaaaaaay down so that there is very very minimal flow.

landlord

 

[turtle]

I have mine split into 3 sections, first is the feed from the tank which splits into the other two. which is a 40 gal breeder i have a piece of acrylis that splits this horizontally it has holes to allow flow through. the lower is rock and sand with about twenty nassarius snails, and a few fighting conches to move the sand. the upper part is the cheato it effectively blocks the light. the skimmer is in the upper portion then feeds another tub that is my return pump. i have noticed a large amount of tube worms in the lower area already

 

[sjm817]

Latest plan is I'm going to run an inch or two of sand in the bottom. I have some LR on order, and have a bucket full of dry LR Rubble that I'm going to mix in as well. I'll probably go higher in the bottom section depending on how all of it fits in there. I'll have the flow into the fuge in the top macro section..

 

[Agu]

I'm doing something similar with chaeto on the top and rubble underneath it. In my setup the water enters at the top into the chaeto, then travels down under the baffle, then travels up and over a second baffle. Unlike Landlords setup, all the rock has good flow with well aerated water. It's been setup this way about 5 years and the charto doubles every month. The rock area is filled with pods, feather dusters and worms that I suspect feed off the detritus that goes there through the overflow.

Here's an old pic before the chaeto was established,

And here you can see the under/over baffles on the right. The center part was supposed to be for a skimmer but I never found a need for one.

 

[sjm817]

Cool setup! I like how you made good use of the former skimmer section.

 

[wld1783]

I would only change the feed to the refug. T off the main tank drain to the refug and then to the sump with the skimmer. The suspended food or duetritus (sp) will go into the refug and feed pods. The rest then goes to your skimmer. What doesn't will be taken and consumed by your refug sand bed.

A layered fuge works, sand...Eggcrate + support...live rock...Cheato is how I usually set up one up. make sure you have the right critters for the sand. I really like nassarious (sp) snales and small brittle stars.

Bill

 

[sjm817]

Here is an update. I set it up last weekend. I wound up re using some sand I had lying around. I put a couple of inches of playsand in the bottom with some Aragonite reef sand on top. Some that I took from the display for seeding, some dry. I also got some coarse gulf live sand from an LFS of some extra bio additions.

I added the LR on top of that and also a bucket full of dry LRR that I had around. I still wound up with far less than I wanted. I'm going to get some more LR and add it in the nearish future.

This is the end view of the 65G fuge.

 

[landlord]

So far so good!

landlord