Refugium Cycle

[snowlynx]

For cheato and live rock only refugium, is there a cycling period as well?

I setup a HOB rufge and I am getting tons of cyano in the HOB and on the live rock. The cheato has not grown much, been about 2 weeks. I just switched to
red blue led plant led's.

 

[Rensmif]

I do believe that ANY changes to your system ie: adding a fish, a coral, or even a water change causes a "cycle" however small it may be.
For a HOB refuge it should be an improvement to your system and you should not see negative effects.

 

[thomas.torode]

no. Even if you kept a small fish within the refugium, any ammonia that it would produce would just re-enter your display and the bacteria in the display would do its work.

 

[snowlynx]

There is some waiting period for the chaeto to kick in
and out compete the other algae?

Trying to determine if this refugium actually works or not

Just gotta wait and see, chaeto has to grow, if not
something not working lol

 

[thegrun]

Unless you add a lot of rock and have a lot of die off you should not have a new cycle. It is common however to have algae and diatom blooms when you add new rock or sand to your tank. I would give it some time before making a decision, but you may need more flow.

 

[snowlynx]

I switched to red blue leds. the cyano is coming back. the pump came with refugium
is 90 GPH. I thought you want low GPH for refugiums. Which brings up a question
about sumps with built in area for refugium, if you use high flow rate for sump,
how can you have a built in refugium?