Refugium critter maintenance

[Lavey29]

So my fuge has been operational almost 3 months now and seems to be successful. Chaeto grows green and huge. Nitrates and phosphate have leveled out at very good numbers. I like the natural approach but am curious about critter maintenance. Seems like more and more critters are moving out of the big reef city to the suburbs. Lots of pods big and small, lots of tiny snails, limpits, asterina starfish, hydroids, critters I can't ID, etc... basically life everywhere down there now. At first I was excited but now concerned. Small snails and tiny starfish are working their ways out of the fuge chamber into the skimmer chamber and then past the bubble trap into the return chamber.

Is this a good thing? I know they eat algae and detritus which is good but if they start to proliferate these chambers will that likely cause mechanical problems?

I am really surprised at how many copepods make it past the tornado of death and bubble trap to get into the return chamber.

Do I just let it run wild down there?

 

[blaxsun]

I don't know if it's a good thing, but to some extent it's unavoidable, so... Right now a few baby trochus snails that I'd left in my sump decided to repopulate the species - and now I have hundreds of the things all over. I guess I'll wait until they mature a bit and start transferring them into the DT.