refugium care

[madewithdisgust]

just got a 29g cube with a refugium, what should I know about them?! and how should I maintain it?

 

[madewithdisgust]

???

 

[SI_rEEfer]

My refugium is bare bottom and collects detritus. I like to siphon this out when I do my weekly water changes.

 

[SwiftysReef]

Mine has 2" of live sand and about 10 lbs of live rock. It also has chaeto and caulerpia macroalgae and is riddled with all types of pods and a female mantis shrimp. It all depends on what you want to have in it. It another mini ecosystem and a refuge for anything you can't keep in your display. I have a green mandarin fish that has a fresh supply of pods in case he eats all of them up top. He's in a 90 gal so I don't think its possible but the fuge will just keep him well supplied in food. Also my display tank drains into the fuge and the sump at the same time.

 

[allsps40]

My refugium is bare bottom and collects detritus. I like to siphon this out when I do my weekly water changes.

Mine is a BB fuge now as well. To keep detritus from settling I put a power head in my fuge. Now it stays in the water column so the filter socks and skimmer can remove it.
All you really need to know about fuges is to have decent light to grow the algae, if you use chaeto it should tumble if possible and harvest the algae on a regular basis to remove the no3 and po4 and so the algae has room to grow.