Let’s see your established refugium

jmichaelh7 · Dec 28, 2021

Let’s see pics of your refugium that is thriving! Currently Chaeto is growing by the day and I’m looking into periods to keep it on vs off (10 hours, 12 hours).

I know there are other types of algae besides Chaeto , and I’m trying to get ideas from your established refugium.

WheatToast · Dec 30, 2021

Here is my refugium, which started seeing its first introductions on September 15th of this year:

With refugium light (on for 12 hours daily):

With flashlight:

Inhabitants include:

Algae:
- Sea lettuce (Ulva sp. and Ulva fasciata) (fastest grower)
- Sea grapes (Caulerpa lentillifera)
- Palm tree algae (Caulerpa paspaloides)
- Green fleece algae (Codium decorticatum) (slowest grower)
- Green coralline
- Other hitchhiker brown, green, and red macroalgae

Animals:
- Copepods
- Amphipods
- Isopods
- Live Mysis shrimp
- Bristleworms
- Spaghetti worms
- Spirorbid worms
- Dove snails (prolific breeders)
- Nassarius snails
- Stomatella snails
- Hawaiian periwinkles (love emerging from the water)
- Micro brittle stars
- Pineapple sponges
- Many smaller invertebrates

Substrates:
- 15 pounds of eBay live mud (3-4 inches)

I am also looking into seagrasses

Ulva:

Dove snails:

Dove snail egg case:

Caulerpa lentillifera:

Caulerpa paspaloides:

Mysis shrimp:

Lavey29 · Dec 30, 2021

This is mine which has only been going about a month. I'm still trying to find the best approach. Light is on 12 hours and I get decent chaeto growth but also some GHA. I added a few peppermint shrimp and trochus snails for clean up. I am already seeing a variety of micro fauna in there which I'm excited about.

X-37B · Dec 30, 2021

My 2 month old 30g remote fuge.
Cheato, ogo, and dragons breath.
I just took the second one and you can see the chaeto growth, phone pic no macro lens.
I harvest about a softball size amount every week now.
The ogo grows quite fast also.

HeyLookItsCaps · Dec 30, 2021

Lilnoelle80 · Jan 1, 2022

90's reefer said:
My 2 month old 30g remote fuge.
Cheato, ogo, and dragons breath.
I just took the second one and you can see the chaeto growth, phone pic no macro lens.
I harvest about a softball size amount every week now.
The ogo grows quite fast also.

So with a remote fuge, is it hooked into a bigger system/DT? How do you do that? Trying to see if I can expand my current in sump fuge’s size my hooking in a second tank.

X-37B · Jan 1, 2022

My 30g remote fuge has a corner overflow. It drains into my 120's 40 breeder sump. Both drains drain into a 7" filter sock.
The return has 2 ball valves to control the flow into the 120 and the fuge running off one main return pump.
I dont use a filter sock holder. Its held up with the bungee cord in the pick.

jmichaelh7 · Jan 1, 2022

WheatToast said:
Here is my refugium, which started seeing its first introductions on September 15th of this year:

With refugium light (on for 12 hours daily):

With flashlight:

Inhabitants include:

Algae:
- Sea lettuce (Ulva sp. and Ulva fasciata) (fastest grower)
- Sea grapes (Caulerpa lentillifera)
- Palm tree algae (Caulerpa paspaloides)
- Green fleece algae (Codium decorticatum) (slowest grower)
- Green coralline
- Other hitchhiker brown, green, and red macroalgae

Animals:
- Copepods
- Amphipods
- Isopods
- Live Mysis shrimp
- Bristleworms
- Spaghetti worms
- Spirorbid worms
- Dove snails (prolific breeders)
- Nassarius snails
- Stomatella snails
- Hawaiian periwinkles (love emerging from the water)
- Micro brittle stars
- Pineapple sponges
- Many smaller invertebrates

Substrates:
- 15 pounds of eBay live mud (3-4 inches)

I am also looking into seagrasses

Ulva:

Dove snails:

Dove snail egg case:

Caulerpa lentillifera:

Caulerpa paspaloides:

Mysis shrimp:

Did you just pour mud in refugium and call it a day? What is your feeding and maintenance like?

90's reefer said:
My 2 month old 30g remote fuge.
Cheato, ogo, and dragons breath.
I just took the second one and you can see the chaeto growth, phone pic no macro lens.
I harvest about a softball size amount every week now.
The ogo grows quite fast also.

I like the color where did you buy it?

HeyLookItsCaps said:

Where did you buy your plants ?

jmichaelh7 · Jan 1, 2022

I hear the lettuce is good to have because it can be fed to the tangs ?

X-37B · Jan 1, 2022

All macro algae was purchased at lfs.

jmichaelh7 · Jan 1, 2022

90's reefer said:
All macro algae was purchased at lfs.

Do you have inverts in your macro algae aquarium

HeyLookItsCaps · Jan 1, 2022

jmichaelh7 said:
Did you just pour mud in refugium and call it a day? What is your feeding and maintenance like?

I like the color where did you buy it?

Where did you buy your plants ?

Honestly a lot of different sites. WheatToast has a great list and I found most of them by stumbling through Google.

AlgaeBarn
SavageReef
CultivatedReef
PacificEastAquaculture
eBay
MySaltwaterFishStore
RUSalty

To name a few

HeyLookItsCaps · Jan 1, 2022

jmichaelh7 said:
I hear the lettuce is good to have because it can be fed to the tangs ?

I feed ulva (sea lettuce) from my fuge in all my tanks to the herbivores.

jmichaelh7 said:
Do you have inverts in your macro algae aquarium

Yes a few nass, a few astrea/trochus, a mantis shrimp hitch hiker, and a crab that couldn’t keep his hands to himself

X-37B · Jan 1, 2022

jmichaelh7 said:
Do you have inverts in your macro algae aquarium

Only things im my fuge right now are a few hermit crabs, few trochus snails, and a few nassurius snail. Its only 2 months old.

fltt · Jan 2, 2022

Just starting to plan for a refugium in a dedicated spot in my sump. I see you all using substrate, is there added benefit or could I go bare to make it easier to clean ?

scrappy35 · Jan 2, 2022

Right now my fuge is an algae factory. I have dragons breath and a tiny piece of sea lettuce in it. Every week I clean the cyano and hair algae out, but it seems to keep most of it out of dt. It’s a work in progress. Today I will be replacing the sump to a new version of a diy 40b sump when I switch the dt out to a larger one. I made a few mods from lessons learned. My cheats died when I was adding vibrant for bubble algae.

Lavey29 · Jan 2, 2022

Ok, so I made a cool discovery. I put 4 trochus snails in my fuge to clean the glass and deal with a little GHA. Well one of these snails crawled over to my media socks that was really dirty and needed to be changed. I got up this morning and the dirty filter sock is completely white and looks totally fresh again....who knew? I don't even have to change it now and the snail is still on it.