What to put in Fuge?

petzerman

New member
I have a sump with a compartment to put stuff in. Im planning on putting some live rock there and chaeto. what else can i put in there? do i need sand in there? live sand? mud?

any help would be great :D
 
LR and chaeto are good. You can do sand or some sort of 'fuge mud, but it's not necessary, especially if you already have adequate biofiltration. The idea is just to create a semi-cryptic habitat for little critters to grow without fish picking at them.
 
oh ok. i was thinking about putting sand in there or mud... but rather just save some money and not. :D im going to have a ati bubble master 200 protein skimmer and running phosphates and carbon. is that enough filtration for a 100 gal tank?
 
Oh, I meant biological filtration, like, as long as you have enough rock and sand in the display, I wouldn't bother with sand in the fuge. A lot of people don't like a sand bed in the fuge because its such low flow, it tends to serve as a settling trap. Sand will just trap it all, whereas it's easy to vaccuum it off a bare bottom.
 
For filtration, anything besides sand and rock is optional. They (or rather the organisms residing on them) are the true workhorses of marine tanks.
 
Maybe this will give you an idea. Mud, chaeto, caulerpa, mangroves, cocoa and feather duster worms, sponges, live rock, one or two snails...

03292011pics001.jpg
 
Yep the spillway... It's not the best designed sump... The drain is split part goes to the fuge and part goes to the skimmer section however the fuge spills into the skimmer section as well so I'm sure some of the pods and critters are getting chopped up.
 
Maybe this will give you an idea. Mud, chaeto, caulerpa, mangroves, cocoa and feather duster worms, sponges, live rock, one or two snails...

03292011pics001.jpg

Maann! that refugium is inspirational... Almost no limits on what you can have in there then... cocoa worms, I never thought it was possible. How many watts of light are you giving ur fuge?
 
I forgot to add I also have 3 or 4 yellowline gobies down there. One took a ride from the display and made it down there, the others I put in there when I switched tanks.

nice fuge!

Thanks. Gives me something else to look at when the display is off and also serves an important function. I keep the lights on 24 hours a day under there.

Cool - full of life

Thats what I was going for.

Maann! that refugium is inspirational... Almost no limits on what you can have in there then... cocoa worms, I never thought it was possible. How many watts of light are you giving ur fuge?

Well feather dusters and cocoa worms are nonphotosynthetic so they just rely on filter feeding. I've had them in there a few months now. Not sure how that will work out long term as I've read they are sometimes hard to keep due to their feeding habits. I can tell their tubes have grown though so must be doing ok.

I am thinking though to switching the lights so there is a few hours of darkness, maybe 18 on and 6 off and see how that goes.

The light is a 23w flood lamp from Home Depot... I think I got the one melev suggests on his site. The reflector is one of those 15 specials from home depot... the metal bell looking ones with the clamp.
 
Some people will trick a fuge out with all sorts of macro algaes, filter feeders and other critters you wouldnt normally keep in the DT and make it dam near as interesting to look at as the main DT.

Generally if you have sand in your fuge you want some sort of powerhead in there to keep detritus suspended so it doesnt turn into a nitrate factory. I've got some feather dusters, a 4 stripe damsel, a sixline wrasse, ulva, cheato, like rock and some sun corals in my fuge. Running sans sand in order to make it easier to suck out the detritus. Had some mangroves but didnt have enough light on them to keep them growing and they withered and died....
 
ok so im thinking about putting some LR, Chaeto, and a CUC. Also thinking about putting some mangroves in.. but do they need sand in order to live and grow?
 
IMO, mangroves are more for show that nutrient export... + they are a hassle to keep alive & eat up mag
 
IMO, mangroves are more for show that nutrient export... + they are a hassle to keep alive & eat up mag

Yep thats why I added them.

No, I don't believe the roots need to be buried, I just zip tie them to the teeth of my sump where it spills into the next section.
 
Yep thats why I added them.

No, I don't believe the roots need to be buried, I just zip tie them to the teeth of my sump where it spills into the next section.

you should get some of that red bubble algae (no idea what it's exactly called, something with a B) from pyskokid. Looks really nice and grows at a good rate.
 
you should get some of that red bubble algae (no idea what it's exactly called, something with a B) from pyskokid. Looks really nice and grows at a good rate.

Its called botryocladia, it usually grows at a pretty good rate. It was doubling in size for me in about 2 months time.

here's a piece i put in my nano cube when i started it up at the beginning of september of last year:
IMG_1634.JPG


and here it is 2 months later at the end of october:
IMG_1758.JPG
 
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