basile
Well-Known Member
A little update on my display refugium, its been 4 months now and i discovered that low flow is not a good idea, high flow is needed to avoid hair algea and other pest build ups, but that high parameter like calcium keeps these down. in fact i never had cyanos since my calcium hit above 450 mark. I red that high calcium deter cyano formation in tanks.
Another fact is that most Macroalgaes like high calcium because they use it a lot. One algae that i found was the Gracilaria family to be exact. They're the ones who grew the most with that parameters.
For Phosphate my Ulva just exploded quadruple in just 4 days .
Caulerpa and cheatos feast on Nitrates of course, thats not to say that no algae don't consume a bit of everything but each seems to relish one above the other. An thats what i'm finding out with my refugium experiment.
I supplement iron, manganese , iodine which is important to specially the red algae, i saw one of my red algae just melt away literally in front of me in 3 days becomming totally transparent and disintegrate. The seller told me the lack of iodine was my problem and sent me another bacth. Since i dose it no problem .
So before doing a refugium with multiple species other than cheatos and caulerpas ; do research i lost only 3 species luckely i was able to salvage my collection of 26 species. Which now i can sell to other and recoop my $300 original investment lol.
I leave on side panel to the pods to feed on, no one sees that side anyway, i made a little window to take a shot inside.
The pods have a better chance of survival and growth if they have grazing grounds
The refugium is feeding my main tank by gravity
I'm currently only growing halimeda in my tank I'm not even trying to it just grew I'm pretty happy with it look after reading this I may look into growing more
