What to put in a refugium space?

Dave & Monica · #1 12/30/2007, 12:38 AM

I redid the sump to include a refugium part with a newly installed florescent light (with the plant/aquarium bulb) – Do I just put live sand and some rubble rock to support some Cheto? Can Cheto just float or does it have to have a place to plant roots? Is it really necessary to buy refugium products such as mud and the like? Appreciate your advise and if you have a good link or two, pls share. I want to have a happy place for pods too but since this apart of the sump, the flow isn’t exactly slow. Thanks again

- Dave

icantremember · #2 12/30/2007, 12:53 AM

In my experience, live sand isn't worth it. You have no idea how long that sand has been sitting on a palette during inclimate weather. Just get some oolitic reef sand (sugar sand) and seed it with some sand from a working tank. You will be hosting pods in no time. You can toss some live rock rubble in there too.

Cheato floats freely and there are no roots to plant. It just needs light and water flow. Aim for 3-5x the volume of your tank through your refugium per hour. Excessive turnover leads to poor filtration.

oscar89 · #3 12/30/2007, 03:34 AM

I put live sand and live rocks in my fug. I have two clumps of Cheto. One is in a slow flow area and the other is in a high flow area. Mine wasn't growing too well so I had to add a second light.

artful-dodger · #4 12/30/2007, 11:53 AM

If you can get the chaetomorpha ball to roll in the water flow it will do best...setting up a crossflow (for example, left-to-right at the surface and right-to-left just above the sand) will spin it great.

rock rubble is good to have but if the sump isn't very tall, the rocks may snag the chaeto and keep it from tumbling properly.

stugray · #5 12/30/2007, 02:23 PM

I would also suggest some Garf Grunge and/or grunge Plus.
That is what I seeded my sand with, and I could nearly go into business selling brittlestars.

Check them out:

www.garf.org

Stu

Dave & Monica · #6 12/30/2007, 02:32 PM

Thanks everyone for your replies.

Stugray, I'll read into this as its quite a lenghty page. Can't seem to quickly see how much the grunge is but I'm sure to come accross that. Thanks again.

Dave & Monica · #7 12/30/2007, 02:34 PM

Stugray - Is the Grunge in your fuge or in the main tank?

artful-dodger · #8 12/30/2007, 09:12 PM

The GARF site is a bit challenging to navigate. (Believe it or not, it is much improved over a couple of years ago.) There are quite a few old posts regarding GARF if you can get the search function to work. Some people swear by them and others just swear at them. I used one blob of it when I first set up the 140 but frankly couldn't tell whether it helped or not. I do think you can do just as well trading a cup of brand new sand for a cup out of somebody's productive fuge...and no shipping charges!

stugray · #9 12/31/2007, 09:10 AM

I use the grunge in the sump, display, fuge, wherever.

I really helped get a lot of critters in my system early on.
I also used their arches & caves, so I didnt have too much real live rock in my system. The grunge helped with seeding the aragocrete rocks.

I also used the grunge plus ( it's just like mud ) in the fuge as a place for the caulerpa to grow. It seems to work great.

Stu