Cheato Refugium

[Daniel91]

Hypothetically speaking, with proper husbandry and care for over feeding, will a back chamber cheato refugium on a IM Nuvo20/25 zero out Nitrates and Phosphates?


If so, would there be a way to NOT zero out Nitrates and keep the water “a little dirty” for some of the corals that might like it.

 

[Porpoise Hork]

The Nuvo series tanks don't really support a refugium like a separate sump or external refuge would. This is mostly due to the limited space and the black glass limiting the light penetration. With that, yes you can better manage nutrient levels with macro algae, but you have to be mindful of a few things. Running an ultra-low nutrient system while good for most SPS corals, actually can cause issues for LPS and softies. For those types of corals you do want to run your nitrates between 2-5 and phosphates to barely register. This will help with coloration as well as minimizing nuisance algae issues. In order to keep it in that range, you have to monitor the levels, in conjunction with feeding and water changes. If you add an external HOB filter like the AquaClear and modify it to be a fuge, you can also control the nutrient export by how much macro algae you keep in it.

 

[landlubber]

it'll help with nutrients but it probably won't be enough to manage as the lone form of control. now if you add a chaeto reactor you might have a situation where it could zero things off but even that is avoidable with either more livestock or more food.
I personally use a refugium as the lone method of nutrient control and imo it's a perfect, low maintenance solution.