Refugium Refusal : Why would you NOT run a refugium?

[MONTANTK]

If I had the room I would definitely have one! Not completely sold on the HOB ones for AIOs. Once I have a plumbed system again I will definitely be adding one

 

[Shannon_Hill]

The only time I’ve not run a refugium is when I didn’t have the space.

 

[Salty Jays Reef]

When planning and building my current system I planned for there to be a fuge in the sump. However, 50% of my rock came out of my old mature tank and 50% was new. I have been watching my nutrients like a hawk and so far my skimmer and filter socks are handling everything with no problem. Nitrates are sitting in the 1-3ppm range and phos runs .03-.08. Nice to know I have the spot for a fuge should I need it though!

 

[sarcophytonIndy]

I have a refugium ready to go, just not running because I can't find chaeto

I always have bunches to harvest/give away, but I'm in Indianapolis

 

[DiZASTiX]

I don't run a chaeto refugium, but I have an outdoor saltwater pond with tons of R mangle (mangroves) and ZEOvit system as well.

 

[yanton]

my refugium sucks. it grew chaeto for 2 months and over the past 18 month has essentially struggled just to stay alive.

Try Sea Lettuce (Ulva Lactuca). I could never grow Chaeto, but my Sea Lettuce thrives.

I run my large wier (an advantage of a custom made tank) as a refugium and enjoy it as part of the hobby. My Ulva easily soaks up all excess nutrients like a sponge. It is full of 'pods'.

 

[landlubber]

Try Sea Lettuce (Ulva Lactuca). I could never grow Chaeto, but my Sea Lettuce thrives.

sounds like something i'll have to keep my eyes open for.
I see some people recommending iron supplements but i always just assumed adding iron to a system would benefit the gha just as much as the macroalgae.

 

[ultraArcite]

sounds like something i'll have to keep my eyes open for.
I see some people recommending iron supplements but i always just assumed adding iron to a system would benefit the gha just as much as the macroalgae.

I run sea lettuce in my refugium as well, it doubles as a snack for my Yellow Tang

 

[KrisReef]

1. Why don't you have a refugium running on your reef tank?

I have one planned, but so far I have not executed that far into "the plan."

2. If you are running a refugium tell us about how they are worth setting up and maintaining?

I did put some chaetomorpha under a daylight led in my live rock tank and it finished off the excess nutrients that remained after I lowered the initial +200ppm concentration down closer to 20. Works great, but this is only on my rock barrel.

I have a question; How come you are not running a live rock barrel?

 

[diverrad]

No room for one on my AIO 40 so I run a Pax Bellum cheato reactor. Not all the benefits of a fuge but most.

 

[Greybeard]

Greybeard, this sounds absolutely ideal. Why do you think the hobby has gone away from this?

Deep sand beds went out of style, for valid reasons... but with them went the market for pods, worms, live sand (real live sand, not the stuff that comes in a plastic bag). Inland Aquatics is gone now, GARF is still around, but has been treading water since Leroy passed. Their web site was a sorry mess in the 90's... today, it looks the same IPSF is still around, but their selection of 'critters' has dropped dramatically. Companies like Tampa Bay Saltwater, you used to be able to buy a scoop of sand, straight off of the sea floor, overnighted in a bag of water, crawling with life, for a reasonable cost. They're not shipping. Who knows if they ever will again.

All the debate I see about 'wet rock, live rock, dry rock'. I haven't seen any REAL wet rock, overnighted straight from the sea, with years, or decades of marine growth... in many years.

The current 'popular' methods don't include bio diversity. Folks want to start sterile, adding ONLY what they wish, to a dry rock, bare bottom system. Trying to keep out undesirables. With that being the popular model, vendors of sea floor mud and critters just aren't going to make it. Add in all the 'save the planet' folks wanting to eliminate any harvesting of natural resources... I don't see that era coming back.

 

[Subsea]

I have zero excess nutrients and have to dose nitrate and phosphate despite feeding heavy. Why would I add chaeto just to remove nutrients I’m deliberately adding?

my next build- I just moved house- is going toninclude a display macro algae refugium, and I’ll dose specifically for that- but I’m not dosing for chaeto. Too ugly. Dragons breath, blue hypnea, shaving brush, manatee grass etc

I liked what you said, except instead of display refugium, I have an ornamental macro lagoon display tank with interesting Caribbean theme invertebrates. It is sumpless and skimmerles. This was to be a temporary setup macro lagoon to cure diver collected rock from Gulf of Mexico in 30’ of water 30 miles west of Tampa Bay. Tank set up < 2 months. Live sand and live rock added three weeks ago. One week ago, added many small blue legged hermits to manicure rock.

Last pictures are of a 25 yr mature tank with a mud/algae refugium.

 

[Subsea]

Deep sand beds went out of style, for valid reasons... but with them went the market for pods, worms, live sand (real live sand, not the stuff that comes in a plastic bag). Inland Aquatics is gone now, GARF is still around, but has been treading water since Leroy passed. Their web site was a sorry mess in the 90's... today, it looks the same IPSF is still around, but their selection of 'critters' has dropped dramatically. Companies like Tampa Bay Saltwater, you used to be able to buy a scoop of sand, straight off of the sea floor, overnighted in a bag of water, crawling with life, for a reasonable cost. They're not shipping. Who knows if they ever will again.

All the debate I see about 'wet rock, live rock, dry rock'. I haven't seen any REAL wet rock, overnighted straight from the sea, with years, or decades of marine growth... in many years.

The current 'popular' methods don't include bio diversity. Folks want to start sterile, adding ONLY what they wish, to a dry rock, bare bottom system. Trying to keep out undesirables. With that being the popular model, vendors of sea floor mud and critters just aren't going to make it. Add in all the 'save the planet' folks wanting to eliminate any harvesting of natural resources... I don't see that era coming back.

Check out this vendor. Tampa Bay Saltwater and Gulf Live Rock are true environmental stewards. They mined 20 million pounds of Bryozoan limestone inland, transported by rail then barged to offshore lease. I have purchased from both vendors, I leaned heavier on Gulf Live Rock. In one 200 lb shipment he texted me a picture of a specific rock as they were boating in at noon. I laid hands on that rock at midnight and it was in my system in less than 14 hours after removal from GOM.

Gulf Live Rock.com

gulfliverock.com

Premium Decorative Live Rock is our most popular rock. This rock will have thick coralline algae on it and a mixed variety of plants, animals, hard and soft corals, sponges and so much more. This type of rock has an enormous variety of animal and encrusting marine life. The shapes and sizes are extremely unique. This rock could contain multi-colored Christmas tree worms, cup and tube corals, feather dusters, gorgonians, serpulid worms and encrusting clams.

This rock is fully blanketed with colorful coralline algae's, these algae's come in multitudes of fascinating shades of purple, reds, oranges, peaches and yellows. Most rocks contain bryzoans,orange leather sponge,gracilaria algae,halimeda, sea grapes, cluster corals, and cup corals. All of our premium decorative live rocks contain seeded plant life,both macro and micro algae.All pieces are hand collected fresh from our gulf lease site by our diving staff and shipped directly to our customers.We do not use any chemicals in our process. The rocks pictured are for example only. All of our premium decorative live rock is as good or better than the rocks pictured. This is Florida Aquacultured live rock.

All of our live rock comes from our personal Federal Aquaculture Lease site located 10 miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. All of our rock was planted on the ocean floor in 1994. So you can image how much marine life has grown on it in over the last 15 years. We have live rock in all different sizes and we can custom fit your order. Our premium decorative live rock starts at $5 a pound. We offer wholesale prices on larger volume orders.

 

[User]

Check out this vendor. Tampa Bay Saltwater and Gulf Live Rock are true environmental stewards. They mined 20 million pounds of Bryozoan limestone inland, transported by rail then barged to offshore lease. I have purchased from both vendors, I leaned heavier on Gulf Live Rock. In one 200 lb shipment he texted me a picture of a specific rock as they were boating in at noon. I laid hands on that rock at midnight and it was in my system in less than 14 hours after removal from GOM.

Gulf Live Rock.com

gulfliverock.com

Premium Decorative Live Rock is our most popular rock. This rock will have thick coralline algae on it and a mixed variety of plants, animals, hard and soft corals, sponges and so much more. This type of rock has an enormous variety of animal and encrusting marine life. The shapes and sizes are extremely unique. This rock could contain multi-colored Christmas tree worms, cup and tube corals, feather dusters, gorgonians, serpulid worms and encrusting clams.

This rock is fully blanketed with colorful coralline algae's, these algae's come in multitudes of fascinating shades of purple, reds, oranges, peaches and yellows. Most rocks contain bryzoans,orange leather sponge,gracilaria algae,halimeda, sea grapes, cluster corals, and cup corals. All of our premium decorative live rocks contain seeded plant life,both macro and micro algae.All pieces are hand collected fresh from our gulf lease site by our diving staff and shipped directly to our customers.We do not use any chemicals in our process. The rocks pictured are for example only. All of our premium decorative live rock is as good or better than the rocks pictured. This is Florida Aquacultured live rock.

All of our live rock comes from our personal Federal Aquaculture Lease site located 10 miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. All of our rock was planted on the ocean floor in 1994. So you can image how much marine life has grown on it in over the last 15 years. We have live rock in all different sizes and we can custom fit your order. Our premium decorative live rock starts at $5 a pound. We offer wholesale prices on larger volume orders.

I’d be all over that for my build out if the shipping didn’t mean it ends up being $18-22/ lb

although looking again, 2 day shipping is free if I am ok with some due off, and the price for 20lb of premium is pretty good at 114. Same as my local LFS live rock.

I might pick up 20 to seed the fuge.

 

[Subsea]

I’d be all over that for my build out if the shipping didn’t mean it ends up being $18-22/ lb

Air Freight means you pick it up at airport. The first 100 lbs cost $90 with everything after at $0.45/lb.

Because of unique packing requirements, certain configurations work best. In my case, I purchased
50 lbs of live sand and 75 lbs of live rock. Air Freight Transportation cost for 125lbs was $120. Southwest & Delta are the hubs from Tampa Bay. In this last shipment, it was 24 hours out of the water. Live sand had numerous micro starfish. Uncured live rock has so much stuff. When I use Turkey blaster to clean rock, the bivalves squirt back at me.

Dave Sanchez is diver owner. Tell him Patrick Castille says hello.

 

[Subsea]

Air Freight means you pick it up at airport. The first 100 lbs cost $90 with everything after at $0.45/lb.

Because of unique packing requirements, certain configurations work best. In my case, I purchased
50 lbs of live sand and 75 lbs of live rock. Air Freight Transportation cost for 125lbs was $120. Southwest & Delta are the hubs from Tampa Bay. In this last shipment, it was 24 hours out of the water. Live sand had numerous micro starfish. Uncured live rock has so much stuff. When I use Turkey blaster to clean rock, the bivalves squirt back at me.
Dave Sanchez is diver owner. Tell him Patrick Castille says hello.

Fat fingers make double post.

 

[mikereefing]

I have taken off my refugium a few times due to super low nutrient levels. My chaeto (when I feed the tank regularly) grows super fast and I now have to feed a lot to make sure my nutrients don't drop too low.

 

[User]

Air Freight means you pick it up at airport. The first 100 lbs cost $90 with everything after at $0.45/lb.

Because of unique packing requirements, certain configurations work best. In my case, I purchased
50 lbs of live sand and 75 lbs of live rock. Air Freight Transportation cost for 125lbs was $120. Southwest & Delta are the hubs from Tampa Bay. In this last shipment, it was 24 hours out of the water. Live sand had numerous micro starfish. Uncured live rock has so much stuff. When I use Turkey blaster to clean rock, the bivalves squirt back at me.
Dave Sanchez is diver owner. Tell him Patrick Castille says hello.

I know about the air freight. I’m 40 minutes from ATL international airport and when I priced out TBS rock, I was getting quoted $22/lb all in. I couldn’t justify 400 for 20lbs of rock. This was a year and a half ago.

I even tried to do a local group buy through one of the forums, and offered to rent a uhaul to take 300lbs to a local store, but no one was interested in it since it would have ended up being like $14/lb. I don’t think anyone actually understood the value of what they were getting.

but having run my 220 with all dry rock for 3 years now - I’m missing all the diversity that comes with proper rock. Not the LFS vat ‘matured’ stuff. Real rock. Everything in my tank was purposefully introduced and I find it a little boring. No critters to hunt for other than spaghetti worms and pods.

 

[IndianReefGuy]

New 90 gallon and I have one going!

That is a good idea! The crate would keep it below the surface and avoid surface die-off in my setup...I don't have a ton of flow in the sump, and have limited space/ outlet availability too.

 

[Subsea]

I know about the air freight. I’m 40 minutes from ATL international airport and when I priced out TBS rock, I was getting quoted $22/lb all in. I couldn’t justify 400 for 20lbs of rock. This was a year and a half ago.

I even tried to do a local group buy through one of the forums, and offered to rent a uhaul to take 300lbs to a local store, but no one was interested in it since it would have ended up being like $14/lb. I don’t think anyone actually understood the value of what they were getting.

but having run my 220 with all dry rock for 3 years now - I’m missing all the diversity that comes with proper rock. Not the LFS vat ‘matured’ stuff. Real rock. Everything in my tank was purposefully introduced and I find it a little boring. No critters to hunt for other than spaghetti worms and pods.

Two points I like about Gulf Live Rock, he is flexible to your needs, not like “The Package”.

When Dan and I discussed the pros & cons of shipping submerged in water, I changed my position and saw the wisdom of shipping damp. If submerged in water, die off can pollute more than its immediate area on the rock. Water weighs a lot but if you prefer water, he will ship it and you will pay for it.