shaannondavis21
New member
How do I create a refugium for my tank
Refugium
- Thread starter shaannondavis21
- Start date
blanden.adam
Team RC
It depends on your setup. A refugium is just another "zone" in your system in which you usually place things like rock rubble, a DSB if you want one, macroalgae, etc. and where organisms such as 'pods can grow safe from predation in your main tank, and perhaps invertebrates that have outgrown their welcome in the DT (large polychete worms, overly large emerald crabs, etc) can live out their lives being useful and happy without the fear of them harming your reef.
So, in order to make recommendations, we will have to have more details about your system
.
So, in order to make recommendations, we will have to have more details about your system
.
shaannondavis21
New member
blanden.adam
Team RC
OK, so you have a few options for implementation:
HOB: This IMO is kinda a waste of time, but people do it so I'll mention it. You can buy a HOB refugium that has a tiny pump that pushes water from your main aquarium into a tiny box that would have your macroalgae, rock rubble, etc. and then overflow back into the aquarium. This is pretty simple to do, but it is very small and I doubt it has any real impact on a large reef.
In Sump: This is probably the most common option and what I personally use in my reef (simply out of space concerns, in a perfect world I'd go with a discrete tank). Here you have a dedicated partition (typically located in the middle chamber of a 3 chamber sump, so the flow from the overflow would be skimmer chamber --> refugium --> return chamber) of your sump separated by baffles in which you put your rock, macroalgae, DSB, etc. This has the advantage of not requiring extra pumps as you can just use the flow through your sump, and if planned properly you can get sufficient size to actually have an effect on your tank. The downside is unless you go with a more complicated setup, you can't really tune the flow going through your fuge as it will just be the flow you have going through your sump, and there are limits on space if your sump is in a cabinet under your tank like many of ours are.
Discrete Tank: This is probably the ideal situation simply because bigger is better with refugiums, and a discrete tank is the "biggest" option. Here you would place a separate return pump in your sump or another return plumbed onto your main return pump, plumb it into the refugium, and have it overflow back into your sump or into your DT. This functions much like a discrete tank, and has the advantage of being a completely separate tank so you are only limited in size by what size chamber you use (with a basement sump, feeding troughs can get you a lot of space for not a lot of money), can function as a separate interesting display if you use another fish tank, and the flow is completely tunable.
Now, what you put in it is a completely different issue. Have you researched your options yet?
HOB: This IMO is kinda a waste of time, but people do it so I'll mention it. You can buy a HOB refugium that has a tiny pump that pushes water from your main aquarium into a tiny box that would have your macroalgae, rock rubble, etc. and then overflow back into the aquarium. This is pretty simple to do, but it is very small and I doubt it has any real impact on a large reef.
In Sump: This is probably the most common option and what I personally use in my reef (simply out of space concerns, in a perfect world I'd go with a discrete tank). Here you have a dedicated partition (typically located in the middle chamber of a 3 chamber sump, so the flow from the overflow would be skimmer chamber --> refugium --> return chamber) of your sump separated by baffles in which you put your rock, macroalgae, DSB, etc. This has the advantage of not requiring extra pumps as you can just use the flow through your sump, and if planned properly you can get sufficient size to actually have an effect on your tank. The downside is unless you go with a more complicated setup, you can't really tune the flow going through your fuge as it will just be the flow you have going through your sump, and there are limits on space if your sump is in a cabinet under your tank like many of ours are.
Discrete Tank: This is probably the ideal situation simply because bigger is better with refugiums, and a discrete tank is the "biggest" option. Here you would place a separate return pump in your sump or another return plumbed onto your main return pump, plumb it into the refugium, and have it overflow back into your sump or into your DT. This functions much like a discrete tank, and has the advantage of being a completely separate tank so you are only limited in size by what size chamber you use (with a basement sump, feeding troughs can get you a lot of space for not a lot of money), can function as a separate interesting display if you use another fish tank, and the flow is completely tunable.
Now, what you put in it is a completely different issue. Have you researched your options yet?
blanden.adam
Team RC
Here is an excerpt from one of my previous posts to give you a synopsis:
"Now as for what to put in the fuge, this is a subject of considerable debate. Almost everybody agrees you should grow macroalgae (chaeto being the easiest and most "set and forget" of the bunch). This is inexpensive, will grow under almost any light (I'd recommend a home-depot clip on reflector with a 6500K spiral compact fluorescent), provides a great way to export nitrates and phosphates (just harvest some when it gets big, it'll take all those nutrients that it used to grow with it), provides a home for beneficial organisms like copepods and amphipods, and can help stabilize the daily pH swings when lit on a reverse photocycle with the display tank.
However, that's where the similarities end. Now on to the pro's and cons of the other possible options:
Bare Bottom: OK, so this is kind of a trick, as bare bottom is just nothing more
. Some people like this because detritus tends to settle in the lowest flow area of the system (it's just a probability thing, detritus can settle elsewhere too, but the lower the flow, the more likely something is to settle), and a fuge is often a low flow area. This makes vacuuming very easy, the thought being to remove particles and decaying organics BEFORE they add nutrients to the water, but it doesn't provide any extra filtration, and if you use good mechanical filtration upstream of the fuge, you are likely to find less detritus settling here anyway.
Rock rubble: This provides extra biological filtration and is the preferred home for pod's, but some complain that it holds the potential to be a detritus trap. Personally, I think you can keep it vacuumed and it should be fine, but it is certainly more difficult to maintain than a bare-bottom fuge with just chaeto.
Shallow-sand bed: Largely there for aesthetic reasons and perhaps to provide a greater variety of organisms (e.g. bristleworms, spaghetti worms etc). This doesn't really provide much extra filtration, except for a little area for aerobic bacteria to culture and a haven for detritovores to eat any detritus that settles.
Deep-sand bed: Deep sand-beds are a tried and true method for reducing nitrates by allowing anaerobic zones to form that will culture the anaerobic bacteria required for converting nitrate back into nitrogen gas, which then bubbles out of your aquarium. However, this comes at the price of accumulation of toxic substances like sulfides in the deeper anoxic zones, causing some reefers to experience tank crashes when the bed is disturbed. Some also complain that the bed is a nutrient sink, and as time goes by (on the order of several years), detritus starts to accumulate and the bed actually produces more nitrates than it removes, however, I think this is less of an issue if you properly maintain the bed.
If you wanted to run a DSB, this would be the ideal place as first of all, the water is relatively clean at this point, so detritus accumulation would be less of an issue, and it is completely separable from the rest of the tank for when you might potentially disturb the bed and potentially release toxic substances during maintenance, so you wouldn't release the compounds back into your aquarium.
Red Mangroves: One of the only true vascular plants that grow in saltwater, some people like to grow mangroves in their fuge for much the same reason you would grow macroalgae, except there are some reports of mangroves removing some toxins as well. In my opinion though, macroalgae is the better option. It grows faster and is way easier to maintain.
As far as what you should use for your fuge, that's up to you. In my fuge I currently use rock rubble and chaeto lit on a reverse photocycle. This works for me, and it's easy enough to vacuum. That said, IDK what I will use on my next, larger tank. Having the DSB debate myself.
Whatever you decide, good luck!"
"Now as for what to put in the fuge, this is a subject of considerable debate. Almost everybody agrees you should grow macroalgae (chaeto being the easiest and most "set and forget" of the bunch). This is inexpensive, will grow under almost any light (I'd recommend a home-depot clip on reflector with a 6500K spiral compact fluorescent), provides a great way to export nitrates and phosphates (just harvest some when it gets big, it'll take all those nutrients that it used to grow with it), provides a home for beneficial organisms like copepods and amphipods, and can help stabilize the daily pH swings when lit on a reverse photocycle with the display tank.
However, that's where the similarities end. Now on to the pro's and cons of the other possible options:
Bare Bottom: OK, so this is kind of a trick, as bare bottom is just nothing more
. Some people like this because detritus tends to settle in the lowest flow area of the system (it's just a probability thing, detritus can settle elsewhere too, but the lower the flow, the more likely something is to settle), and a fuge is often a low flow area. This makes vacuuming very easy, the thought being to remove particles and decaying organics BEFORE they add nutrients to the water, but it doesn't provide any extra filtration, and if you use good mechanical filtration upstream of the fuge, you are likely to find less detritus settling here anyway.Rock rubble: This provides extra biological filtration and is the preferred home for pod's, but some complain that it holds the potential to be a detritus trap. Personally, I think you can keep it vacuumed and it should be fine, but it is certainly more difficult to maintain than a bare-bottom fuge with just chaeto.
Shallow-sand bed: Largely there for aesthetic reasons and perhaps to provide a greater variety of organisms (e.g. bristleworms, spaghetti worms etc). This doesn't really provide much extra filtration, except for a little area for aerobic bacteria to culture and a haven for detritovores to eat any detritus that settles.
Deep-sand bed: Deep sand-beds are a tried and true method for reducing nitrates by allowing anaerobic zones to form that will culture the anaerobic bacteria required for converting nitrate back into nitrogen gas, which then bubbles out of your aquarium. However, this comes at the price of accumulation of toxic substances like sulfides in the deeper anoxic zones, causing some reefers to experience tank crashes when the bed is disturbed. Some also complain that the bed is a nutrient sink, and as time goes by (on the order of several years), detritus starts to accumulate and the bed actually produces more nitrates than it removes, however, I think this is less of an issue if you properly maintain the bed.
If you wanted to run a DSB, this would be the ideal place as first of all, the water is relatively clean at this point, so detritus accumulation would be less of an issue, and it is completely separable from the rest of the tank for when you might potentially disturb the bed and potentially release toxic substances during maintenance, so you wouldn't release the compounds back into your aquarium.
Red Mangroves: One of the only true vascular plants that grow in saltwater, some people like to grow mangroves in their fuge for much the same reason you would grow macroalgae, except there are some reports of mangroves removing some toxins as well. In my opinion though, macroalgae is the better option. It grows faster and is way easier to maintain.
As far as what you should use for your fuge, that's up to you. In my fuge I currently use rock rubble and chaeto lit on a reverse photocycle. This works for me, and it's easy enough to vacuum. That said, IDK what I will use on my next, larger tank. Having the DSB debate myself.
Whatever you decide, good luck!"
shaannondavis21
New member
Wow thanks for the info! After reading every post I realize how much I have to learn.
