Sand bed in refugium?

[davidpesce]

I've seen a good deal of threads with people weighing in on whether or not they have sand, or mud, or bare bottom in their refugiums.

What's everyone in URS have? Reasons why?

 

[Hiltonc57]

when i upgrade my sump design (someday) im going to add both mud and sand. It allow for different bacteria growth and feel like it would be more natural. Also could add in some mangroves and the sand gives the pods another place to live!

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

my 10 gallon RDSB (remote deep sandbed) doubles as a refugium so I went with sand.

Sugar size sand is optimal for denitrification. Larger sand is better for amphipods.

Mud, Miracle Mud, "MM" (etc.) is best for more sterile systems (such as FOWLR's) IME.

 

[ryan_]

I have always run 3" or more of sand in a fuge. Honestly, since I have never used mud, I have nothing to compare to. I have always been happy with sand though.

Once I have my "real system", I will have several sumps. This way, I can grow different things in each sump.

In Anthony Calfo's book of coral propagation, he talks about multiple sumps to build a complete system. BTW.....Awesome book and worth every penny!

 

[Conesus_Kid]

I've got about 5" of sand in my refugium, but I'm beginning to wonder if it's accumulating phosphates. I've been waging a battle with cyanobacteria and I can't seem to keep the upper hand. I've removed most of the sand from the display.

 

[Kent E]

I've come to the conclusion (the hard way) that no sand is the best sand. With one caveat, a dusting in the display only if there is a creature aggressively turning it over.

If you go RDSB, check it every six months. How? -I don't know. RDSBs are supposed to give the flexibility of removing them... but people often don't.

 

[ryan_]

I keep the sand in my DT's at about 2-2 1/2". To make sure the sand stays sifted, I keep a LOT of nassarius snails. Helps for cleaning up uneaten food too. I love dropping food in the tank and watching "the zombies" come out. In the 7 years Ive been doing this, I've had one cyano outbreak, corrected by 2-25% water changes and changing flow directions, and one HA outbreak that was corrected in 3 days with s few mexican turbo snails (borrowed from a great LFS) and daily water changes for 7 days.

 

[mr86mister]

If you go deep sand bed I'd make sure to keep good sand sifters to give it a turnover rate. Mud is ok, I haven't heard enough things about it to recommend it.

 

[cardiffgiant]

Not a fan.

DSB's function best with low to no light and very high flow (so that no detritus settles to the bed). Refugiums seems to be most effective with high light and moderate to high flow. I notice that macro algae slows the flow significantly, causing detritus to trap in the algae and eventually settle to the sand bed.

The ultimate judge: I tried both a DSB fuge combo and a bare bottom fuge in the same system and had lower NO3 and PO4 and less nuisance algae with the latter.