:Sigh:
I wish, but have to ocean, only the tanks, too small for the tasks:
- one, 90g for keeping a large and messy fish, which eats a lot and wastes a lot,
- two, Christmas tree rocks in 10g, and they require a lot of feeding,
- tree, 6g nano, filled to brims by non-photosynthetic corals: chilis and gorgonians.
The feeding cannot be reduced, only cleaning and filtration could be improved.
Tried to use refugiums for all of them, each refugium ended with red cyano, acoel worms and some with dinoflagellates (bubbles in the red cyano), even with a plenty of flow, 25x and more turnover. It was not good for the tanks, had to disconnect refugiums.
The self-sufficient 5g hex, I was talking about, was set as a trial do establish the live sand from the bagged live sand, using the virtue of patience. Ended up almost abandoning it, and dumping there the corals, that had no other place to go.
Here is my miserable practically self sufficient tank (relatively speaking: very rarely changed 1/10 of water, regularly added alkalinity supplement and top-off water, may be once a week or in two-tree weeks - drop of food for mysids, power filter and later pump - for water movement only), half of year old:
Started this way:
Then become:
Later:
The clam is here temporarily, may be for a month, until the problems in the nest tank ended.
Now, with the main mass of chaeto and ochtodes removed:
But I would like to learn, how to manage refugium-like tanks, without red cyano and such, for the sake of all other tanks. Any advice is greatly appreciated.
One pitfall - the sumps/refugiums could be only with the same water level, not below the tank.