Refugium

[Great Lakes]

All good ideas.
Here are my thoughts.

Put a nice 20L above the tank as suggested. That way, Ian is correct. He can stand in front of it with a pint and enjoy watching the diversity going on in it. All you need to light it is a regular flourescent or small power compact.

And do not get a Mandarin until you can look in the display tank and see pod life proliferating nicely.

Mandarins are beautiful fish, but sadly so many starve to death. I am not sure, but I have a feeling that is a terrible way to die..

GL.

 

[BigIan]

I`m in no rush for the goby just yet, we`re having other issues with the tank at the moment, with sky high nitrates that we want to get down first then we want to build up a greater supply of LR in the tank the the HOB sump may well get ripped up and used as a small fudge for the time being.

the tank currently contains...
2 clowns (not 100% sure exactly what bread they are,
1 candy cain coral,
1 yellow figi leather,
2 hermits
2 turbo snails
1 cleaner shrimp.
some sponge and some alge...


the hob filter we have needs some tinkering before it can be used as a fudge, but once i have something that will hold the LR without overflowing what exactly would i put into the fudge...

also would having a fuge on the tank with such little stocking polute my water by producing lots of critters that then go and die??

 

[BigIan]

the hob is about a foot deep and 4-5 inches wide. and will over flow back into the tank,

Would i need to add flow at the bottom of the hob to stop it becoming a dead spot or will it be okay with just the LR in there

the red line should hopefully show the line of flow...

 

[crazyelece]

First add some more cleaners, one cleaner for every US gallon is about the minimum amount you want to keep in there. Scarlet hermits and nessarius snails are what I'd recommend.

Second adding live rock will get your nitrates down the fastest so you could add that anytime. The more the better here just make sure you cure it ahead of time so that there won't be die off in the tank.

Third the contents of the fuge are really dependant on what you want the fuge to do. Basically it is just a refuge seperated from the rest of the tank where you can keep livestock that would not survive in the display for whatever reason. Some uses for fuges: algea filters, pod generaters, fish prison or isolation, deep sand beds. Basically if you have something you want to keep and it won't work in the display you can setup a fuge to keep it in. If all you are looking at using a fuge for is to populate the tank with pods, all you really need in the fuge is some live rock or live rock rubble. But you need to decide what you want the fuge to do, or its purpose, before you can figure out what to put in it.

Lastly a fuge will not polute the water as all the critters that grow and fall in have a purpose whether they become food or not. Those critters also help with clean up purposes inside the tank. And when they do die will get taken care of by a cleaning crew member of one form or another. No worries on tank polution from that end.

 

[BigIan]

yea we know we need more clean up crew we`re just waiting for the nitrates to drop down again before we add any more.

i was hoping the fuge would produce pods asweell as removing nitrate, it`s not very big ony about 10L but we bought a full set up of an old guy who was having trouble to take care of it and the nitrates were 100+ 2 weeks ago and were still fighting getting them down, it had a hang on the back filter filled with floss and bioballs, i want to remove the floss and bio balls and fill it with LR, however the flow through the hob isn`t very good so was wondering what sort of flow it would need to becomea fuge. to produce pods and reduce nitrate

 

[crazyelece]

A HOB filter can be used successfully for pods but isn't very good at nitrate reduction.

There are two main ways to reduce nitrates.

First way is algea harvesting. This is usually done with macro algeas or mangroves in a fuge. The plants use nitrates to grow and when you prune the plants you essentially remove nitrates from the system. This setup is mainly used to keep nitrates low not to actually lower them. High nitrates can actually kill or stunt the growth of some of the macro algeas.

The second way to get rid of nitrates is with anerobic bacteria. This bacteria grows deep within live rock where there is no oxygen. It also grows in deep sand beds in the lower layers of sand where there is no oxygen. Essentialy this bacteria converts nitrate into nitrogen gas. This is what you really are looking for as the bacteria is what gets the nitrates down in the first place.

I'd say for now your best bet is to add live rock quantity. Just be sure it is good live rock that has been cured already. You can also help matters with more frequent and/or larger water changes. It is important to note here that your source water is free from nitrates. If you haven't already check this. If your new water is already loaded with nitrates it isn't going to help trying to bring them down. You could also add a denitrater filter if you have some DIY skills or add in a remote dsb filter.

 

[BigIan]

i think the fuge is going on the back burner for a little while untill we have this tank ticking over a bit better, and my knowledge has increased a little