Tried a refugium, and then today...

[pdiehm]

removed it.

My sump was set up, skimmer/Fuge/Return. The sump was nasty green, algae throughout, detritus, and broken pieces of chaeto.

Drained the sump, took it out of the stand, cut off the baffle separating the fuge and the skimmer, cleaned it out some, cleaned my skimmer, found a fish that I was wondering where it went (a black mollie).

Now it's skimmer...bubble trap, and return. 24" x 8" x 17.5" of return water.

Maybe when I understand more about refugium's, I'll rebuild the sump...I'll leave the light over the sump as a worklight, and just keep the outlet hot on the apex.

 

[stingeragent]

Well algae growing in the fuge is better than the main tank. I will agree with you they can harbor detritus depending on your flow rate through it. Do you use filter socks? If your return section is now larger, you could just drop some chaeto in and forgo the sand bed and all that.

 

[oseymour]

When I had a new fuge, I had cyano and all kinds of nasty algae growing in it - but guess what? it stopped growing in the display tank.

Once i switched to an LED light I stopped getting cyano and some of the algea (I think CFL bulbs from Home Depot are only good for a perioud of time before the spectrum shifts)