Negative Experiences with Refugiums

[LadyTang2]

I'm curious to hear if anyone feels their current or former refugium was more a problem than a benefit. We hear so much about the positives but what are the negatives?

I have followed some threads and friends tanks closely, the other day I just realized, my 3 favorite gorgeous tanks have no fuge's. While it's clear they have some benefits, I have this suspicion they are overhyped (to be clear - perhaps overall beneficial but people speak of them as though they produce holy water). What are all of the potential drawbacks? I can only think of one atm... another thing to clean that people neglect, what else?

 

[hart24601]

Some negatives, the biggest, no pun intended is the size. Takes precious space away, and light bleed can grow algae in skimmer or other unwanted areas. 2nd is making sure it grows healthy. I have chaetomax on a doser, just a couple ml/day and it solved my 3rd issue the algae dying and floating off and being a mess.

So for me the downside is space, more equipment, and making sure it survives.

I ran many tanks fugeless and it worked great. I now have a large fuge and am much happier though as it just gives me more leeway. I had to monitor no3, po4 closely in those other tanks and use gfo quite a bit and micromanage a lot more. Now I have a huge fuge I can feed 1 cube, or 5 cubes and either way no2 is 1-2ppm and phosphate0.03 or less. No gfo or anything else needed now. It helps I have a 150g Rubbermaid sump downstairs... otherwise I wouldn’t have the space.

 

[LadyTang2]

Some negatives, the biggest, no pun intended is the size. Takes precious space away, and light bleed can grow algae in skimmer or other unwanted areas. 2nd is making sure it grows healthy. I have chaetomax on a doser, just a couple ml/day and it solved my 3rd issue the algae dying and floating off and being a mess.

So for me the downside is space, more equipment, and making sure it survives.

I ran many tanks fugeless and it worked great. I now have a large fuge and am much happier though as it just gives me more leeway. I had to monitor no3, po4 closely in those other tanks and use gfo quite a bit and micromanage a lot more. Now I have a huge fuge I can feed 1 cube, or 5 cubes and either way no2 is 1-2ppm and phosphate0.03 or less. No gfo or anything else needed now. It helps I have a 150g Rubbermaid sump downstairs... otherwise I wouldn’t have the space.

Any chance you can post a pic of your DT and Fuge?

Also, I am assuming you have copepods in your fuge, where in the order of filtration is your fuge? I have seen some as the first part of filtration, before the socks and skimmer. How would copepods make it through the socks and skimmer, I dont understand why I see ie mr saltwater tank doing builds and placing it first if you want those to eventually make it to your DT, any ideas? Lastly, do pods really help as coral food, and for which corals can take advantage?

 

[LadyTang2]

Some negatives, the biggest, no pun intended is the size. Takes precious space away, and light bleed can grow algae in skimmer or other unwanted areas. 2nd is making sure it grows healthy. I have chaetomax on a doser, just a couple ml/day and it solved my 3rd issue the algae dying and floating off and being a mess.

So for me the downside is space, more equipment, and making sure it survives.

I ran many tanks fugeless and it worked great. I now have a large fuge and am much happier though as it just gives me more leeway. I had to monitor no3, po4 closely in those other tanks and use gfo quite a bit and micromanage a lot more. Now I have a huge fuge I can feed 1 cube, or 5 cubes and either way no2 is 1-2ppm and phosphate0.03 or less. No gfo or anything else needed now. It helps I have a 150g Rubbermaid sump downstairs... otherwise I wouldn’t have the space.

Any chance you can post a pic of your DT and Fuge?

Also, I am assuming you have copepods in your fuge, where in the order of filtration is your fuge? I have seen some as the first part of filtration, before the socks and skimmer. How would copepods make it through the socks and skimmer, I dont understand why I see ie mr saltwater tank doing builds and placing it first if you want those to eventually make it to your DT, any ideas? Lastly, do pods really help as coral food, and for which corals can take advantage?

 

[teller]

Some negatives, the biggest, no pun intended is the size. Takes precious space away, and light bleed can grow algae in skimmer or other unwanted areas. 2nd is making sure it grows healthy. I have chaetomax on a doser, just a couple ml/day and it solved my 3rd issue the algae dying and floating off and being a mess.

So for me the downside is space, more equipment, and making sure it survives.

I ran many tanks fugeless and it worked great. I now have a large fuge and am much happier though as it just gives me more leeway. I had to monitor no3, po4 closely in those other tanks and use gfo quite a bit and micromanage a lot more. Now I have a huge fuge I can feed 1 cube, or 5 cubes and either way no2 is 1-2ppm and phosphate0.03 or less. No gfo or anything else needed now. It helps I have a 150g Rubbermaid sump downstairs... otherwise I wouldn’t have the space.

Dosing chaetomax or chaetogrow?
Thanks.

 

[hart24601]

Dosing chaetomax or chaetogrow?
Thanks.

Whoops chaetogrow! Good catch!

 

[hart24601]

Any chance you can post a pic of your DT and Fuge?

Also, I am assuming you have copepods in your fuge, where in the order of filtration is your fuge? I have seen some as the first part of filtration, before the socks and skimmer. How would copepods make it through the socks and skimmer, I dont understand why I see ie mr saltwater tank doing builds and placing it first if you want those to eventually make it to your DT, any ideas? Lastly, do pods really help as coral food, and for which corals can take advantage?

Below is the tank under whites which I peak for a couple hours a day before going more blue. Also is a close up of a couple months acro growth and the sump with laundry basket fuge. A had a floating basket that looked nicer, but this one holds a lot more macro. You can see that big Rubbermaid doesn’t have any real order except socks 1st.

I feed the tank a lot and feed baby brine shrimp to the display so the amount of pods going to the display is in my opinion not significant for feeding corals.

 

[Matt Carden]

I have picture evidence of LPS eating large pieces of flesh from frozen food.

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

@Rakie you may find this thread interesting

 

[Halal Hotdog]

You're right in the sense that refugiums are not necessary to run a healthy reef. In terms of looking for drawbacks or side effects, I don't think you will find many. Same for a sump, protein skimmer, controller, dosing pumps... It is not necessary to have any of these to run a healthy reef. There are many things in our systems that are added to decrease our workload and help maintain stability, none of them are absolutely necessary.

 

[madweazl]

We have a refugium that is a little over 8g on our 75g tank. It is lit with a Kessil H160 and an H80 and has few different caulerpas along with cheato (it hitchhiked in with the caulerpa). The tank has been run in this fashion for a little over three years now and everything has worked well. I have no idea if it is helping or hurting but the acropora look good so I leave well enough alone. I dont dose anything to the tank outside of two part and I dont harvest the algae either (well, I do occasionally).

 

[LadyTang2]

We have a refugium that is a little over 8g on our 75g tank. It is lit with a Kessil H160 and an H80 and has few different caulerpas along with cheato (it hitchhiked in with the caulerpa). The tank has been run in this fashion for a little over three years now and everything has worked well. I have no idea if it is helping or hurting but the acropora look good so I leave well enough alone. I dont dose anything to the tank outside of two part and I dont harvest the algae either (well, I do occasionally).

Thanks madweazl, can I see a pic of your DT

 

[madweazl]

Thanks madweazl, can I see a pic of your DT

 

[Ron83]

I am notoriously bad at regular water changes. Know yourself. I also have a brutal and unforgiving work schedule. That is why I prefer a refugium. A few people told me not to put a refugium under my tank and I didn't listen. I can control my nutrient exports through simple lighting schedule changes on my refugium. Also, I don't need a refugium and a GFO reactor. That only took me 3 years to figure out. I am great at regular testing but not regular water changes.

 

[HotRocks]

Another drawback of a refugium is that you can deplete all nutrients in your system. It takes some playing with the photoperiod and when to/when not to prune back the macro in order to keep your nutrients in check. I learned that the hard way personally as I was trying to use the fuge to chase pH numbers and running the photoperiod way way too long. It resulted in pale acros due to zeroed out nitrate and phosphate. I have 17 fish in a 112 gallon tank as well so not a light load by any means and I feed heavy.

I only run mine for about 4 hours now and I only let the chaeto grow to about a softball before I shrink it to a golf ball again

@Rakie May or may not have had anything to do with that

 

[LadyTang2]

Another drawback of a refugium is that you can deplete all nutrients in your system. It takes some playing with the photoperiod and when to/when not to prune back the macro in order to keep your nutrients in check. I learned that the hard way personally as I was trying to use the fuge to chase pH numbers and running the photoperiod way way too long. It resulted in pale acros due to zeroed out nitrate and phosphate. I have 17 fish in a 112 gallon tank as well so not a light load by any means and I feed heavy.

I only run mine for about 4 hours now and I only let the chaeto grow to about a softball before I shrink it to a golf ball again

@Rakie May or may not have had anything to do with that

Thanks rocks, can I see a pic of your DT and fuge?

I'm scared to death of dinos so knocking nutrients too low is def not something I wanna do in my upcoming build. This can be prevented from harvesting more, and more frequently right? Or is it better to shorten the photoperiod? Overall you would recommend a fuge correct?

 

[Streetdoc77]

External 75 gallon fuge connected to 120 gallon, I can’t really think of many negatives except it pulling the nutrients super low .

 

[Fish E]

If you don't mind me asking what is this acro?

 

[hart24601]

If you don't mind me asking what is this acro?

I don’t remember, lol. I have bought a lot from Jason fox and wwc and 3 battle boxes but don’t write down the names. I really should!!

 

[Rubblereefer]

Another drawback of a refugium is that you can deplete all nutrients in your system. It takes some playing with the photoperiod and when to/when not to prune back the macro in order to keep your nutrients in check. I learned that the hard way personally as I was trying to use the fuge to chase pH numbers and running the photoperiod way way too long. It resulted in pale acros due to zeroed out nitrate and phosphate. I have 17 fish in a 112 gallon tank as well so not a light load by any means and I feed heavy.

I only run mine for about 4 hours now and I only let the chaeto grow to about a softball before I shrink it to a golf ball again

@Rakie May or may not have had anything to do with that

Wait, what? I’d be shocked if A golf ball sized lump of cheato lit for 4 hours in a 100 gallon system did much of anything at all. I run a 50 gallon system with about 20-30x that much.

 

[LadyTang2]

Another drawback of a refugium is that you can deplete all nutrients in your system. It takes some playing with the photoperiod and when to/when not to prune back the macro in order to keep your nutrients in check. I learned that the hard way personally as I was trying to use the fuge to chase pH numbers and running the photoperiod way way too long. It resulted in pale acros due to zeroed out nitrate and phosphate. I have 17 fish in a 112 gallon tank as well so not a light load by any means and I feed heavy.

I only run mine for about 4 hours now and I only let the chaeto grow to about a softball before I shrink it to a golf ball again

@Rakie May or may not have had anything to do with that

Do refugiums remove more nitrate or phosphate? Which is at more risk of going to zero or is it equal?

Also, I'm curious did you start your current tank with live rock?