Refigum info

[Frank]

I have a 60 gallon tank that has been up and running for 14 years. I use a 6" live sand bed and a home made skimmer. I was fish only up till a year ago and started with corals and installed a 150 MH with T5's. Things grew like mad sofish and overgrown soft T's and others I am having trouble even with changing 15 gallons a water a week my nitrates go from 10 PPM to 20 or so. What size hang on refigum is recommend, do i use sand or rubble and what is the average drop in nitrates using a hang on with my over sized

refigum. Thanks in advance

 

[Murfman]

I don't really think you are going to see much nitrate reduction from a HOB refugium. 10-20 is not bad, really. A lot of corals actually uptake nitrates in their growth. Your 6" DSB does more for your nitrate reduction than a HOB will. The HOB will be a good place to grow pods to feed the tank though. What you didn't tell us is what is your bio load and how much do you feed?

 

[Troylee]

and what kind of a diy skimmer is it??? might be a problem there.... and depending how old that tank is the deep sand bed could be working in reverse...

 

[Yellowtang]

That doesn't look like sand to me more like crushed coral. It's to coarse for sand bed that would reduce nitrates. 6 inches of that coarse of substrate will manufacture nitrates for you. The particle size should be closer to grains of table sugar.

JR,

 

[rock_lobster]

20 ppm of nitrates is ok for soft coral you should probably set up a refugium its a lot easier than you would think. You need a pound or 2 of chaeto in that refugium to wipe out the nitrates/phosphates in your tank. Soft coral need organics in the water not so much nitrates they can however tolerate the nitrates to a much higher level than sps/lps.