Joeganja
2500 Club Member
I just watched a debate on refugiums from a MACNA presentation in 2014 with guest speaks Julian Sprung and Jake Adams. First of all I think I just rethought everything I knew about refugiums so go watch this! It's on bulk reef supply's video section under MACNA presentations on YouTube. They talk about refugiums about whether they are worth to have or not. But the debate kind of shifted to whether you needed them for a problem or possible positive to your main display or wanted to deal with problems in other ways. It caught my attention because it's something that any aquarium keeper whether your just starting out or have been it for years has always questioned having at one point. Personally I have a sump with a refugium area but just run water through. We've all had algae outbreaks in some point in our time of being an aquarist and for those who have used an algae scrubber like myself know that it works well at removing algae because the algae absorbs the nutrients with the reverse lighting and such and I won't go into detail on that but what I'm saying is we spend so much money on our tanks we are willing to do and try anything whether someone tells us not to or to do something. I believe Julian pointed out that people use Zeovit and really powerful protein skimmers to reduce nitrates for sps tanks instead of having algae grow and reduce nitrates but also algae would reduce phosphates where skimmers and Zeovit systems wouldn't be able to do that. It's what your trying to accomplish and what works best for you. There's always different opinions and ways that have worked well for others haven't worked so well for some. Like carbon dosing. People have basically ran their tanks by them but if you stop there have been numerous accounts and instances where people's tanks go to hell because of it and it's mostly because they are unaware of what happens. What works for others may not work for you and that's basically a rule of thumb for anyone in this hobby. You are dealt with either this or that or are there ways to prevent problems that may occur in the future. Jake spoke how a refugium may work for a while but there's always going to be prone to failure due to lack of research and even unknowns that may become problems in your refugium and your ecosystem may not come to an equilibrium with. And just like Jake pointed out its more like are you trying to solve a problem if so is there other solutions that don't need to be more time and cost consuming as well as space coming. In the end of the day it's like everything else. LED's or T5s or Halogens, an Mp40 or a Maxspect gyre 150, large tank or small tank. A statement was made by Leng Sy from EcoSystem on how about 60% or something of aquarists that enter the hobby end up leaving it due to the fact of failure. There's so many different things to try and there's no right or wrong answer. I liked the comment how in an Lps tank skimmers aren't really needed if the waste is very low and water changes are done because Lps corals love more dirty water than Sps that require cleaner and tanks with very little to no nitrates. We've always been told or we just assume a refugium adds more of a "feel good" feeling because of what others have told us or what a lot of people think of what a sump needs to consist of. I think the lack of proper information leads to local fish stores giving new aquarists leading to believe that refugiums are vital component to saltwater aquariums where less and less people are using them because of other alternatives that work better than refugiums and can be more stable and straight forward such as a Zeovit system. I've had both a refugium and not having one and to be honest I had it first coming into the hobby because I thought everyone needed one and it was a key thing to help keep your bacteria and nutrient levels where they should be. Honestly I like no refugium just because it looks cleaner. But I like how Julian pointed out that if know what your doing and you have enough of for example Mangroves in your refugium then they will help impact the levels on nitrates. So it's more of knowing what you need to do in order to reach success. We are all scientists here in this hobby and we are always experimenting on different solutions and ways to make our aquariums better and to make our lives easier.
