refugium substrate

[Kennetht]

should I use sand, or buy the Mineral mud stuff for my refugium substrate? I plan on growing pods and using mangroves as natural filtration with live rock. If sand....any certain type? MY LFS sells Live Sand for $3.99 a lb.

[Sir Knight]

Hey Kennetht,
Mineral mud has a lot of iron, etc in it. So you are in turn indirectly adding this to your tank.
If I was going to setup a refugium, I would use dead sand, seed it with live sand than buy some the copods, etc to add. If the refugium is small than I would just go with live sand and not dead. Either way it will work. I am one of those people that believe that a refugium should be equal to if not larger than the main show tank

Just my opinion

[awcurl]

I have no experience with the Mineral mud so I can't advise about it. If you use sand use a sugar size aragonite sand from 4" to 5" in depth and add one to two pounds of live sand. In no time at all the entire sand bed will become live and you will have plenty of pods. It will also become living sand if you add live rock to the fuge. If you can get some sand from an established tank to use as seed sand, that will work also. If you like I will bring a small bag of my sand to the next meeting for you to use as seed sand.

[SmartWrasse]

I don't like the mineral / miracle mud (and I have used the "miracle"). IMPA opinion go with a LS bed. Bigger is better, but something is better than nothing.

[imsqueak]

If you use dead and seed with the bagged "live sand" I dont think you'll get the worms and pods that you need, just bacteria in the live sand. How big of an area are you thinking for your fuge? Are you thinking fuge/sump combo? If your LFS sells live sand from their tanks, you'd probably get a lot more worms and pods and could add that maybe 50/50 to dead sand. I tried to seed with the bagged "live sand" and have never seen any worm trails in my dsb. But I can also bring some sand from my tank to the mtg, it's got the bacteria, just no other "visible" life.

I've read on RC that "miracle" mud has little, if any, better qualities than soil from the back yard. Mine is clay except the top 1/2 so I dont suppose that applies to me... darn contractors!

Don

[Kennetht]

As of right now....the fuge is a section in the middle of a 10G tank that is divided into 3 sections to keep water turbulence low in the fuge. Thanks for the offers on the sand, but I don't think I'm gonna be able to make it to the meeting. I guess that I will get some sand from the LFS to seed it with, and then get a pod culture off of aquabid. I have some Live rock rubble that is going into the fuge also. Thanks for all the help.