Refugium Upgrade

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tdileo

tdileo

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I recently decided I'm going to be upgrading my 46G's fuge and am not completely sure what I'm going to do. My previous one was destroyed by my weird emerald crab who literally would only eat chaeto and shrimp. Now he won't touch algae and only likes meaty stuff so I don't worry about that much. What macroalgae do you guys put in your refugium? I won't go near caulerpa because the thought of their nuke scares me lol. I was thinking halimeda, ulva and both red and green gracillaria. I will also have about 7 pounds of rock rubble in there. Thanks.
 
I'd take the emerald crab back to the lfs and trade it for a big ball of cheato.
 
XNavyDiver said:
I'd take the emerald crab back to the lfs and trade it for a big ball of cheato.
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I plan on having a reactor for chaeto which is why I didn't list it there. But I know chaeto is by far the most popular species of macroalgae but I would like to mix it up a bit
 
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tdileo said:
I plan on having a reactor for chaeto which is why I didn't list it there. But I know chaeto is by far the most popular species of macroalgae but I would like to mix it up a bit
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I was going to say Chaeto too. But now I"m curious. I"m not up to speed on Chaeto/Algae reactors. Aren't they a replacement for refugium.....A nutrient export? Will you not have issues with one competing and or depleting the nutrients to the other? That's what it sound like. I"m not sure as I have not read up on them, but the reactor seems like its a concentrated light source for the algae and a safe haven for pods. Are most people running these reactors with refuguiums? If so what is the benefit? Just curious because I have seen threads with people having them now and one of them was like $1K. It looked cool....but not that cool to me.
 
mtraylor said:
I was going to say Chaeto too. But now I"m curious. I"m not up to speed on Chaeto/Algae reactors. Aren't they a replacement for refugium.....A nutrient export? Will you not have issues with one competing and or depleting the nutrients to the other? That's what it sound like. I"m not sure as I have not read up on them, but the reactor seems like its a concentrated light source for the algae and a safe haven for pods. Are most people running these reactors with refuguiums? If so what is the benefit? Just curious because I have seen threads with people having them now and one of them was like $1K. It looked cool....but not that cool to me.
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Oh god I would not be buying a fancy reactor lol. Just a media reactor with some LED strip lights put on there. I didn't think pods would survive in there which is why I wanted a seperate fuge. I don't plan on having much in the fuge beyond rock rubble and a few species of macroalgae for pods to hide in
 
tdileo said:
Oh god I would not be buying a fancy reactor lol. Just a media reactor with some LED strip lights put on there. I didn't think pods would survive in there which is why I wanted a seperate fuge. I don't plan on having much in the fuge beyond rock rubble and a few species of macroalgae for pods to hide in
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LOL. Oh I"m just curious. I would think that you wouldn't need the reactor with the big fuge like you have. YOu could grow what ever kind of algae you wanted. Now if you made say like a show fuge with the cool algae's in there where you could see everything then the reactor could do most of the nutrient export it may work. Keep us posted how it works.
 
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mtraylor said:
LOL. Oh I"m just curious. I would think that you wouldn't need the reactor with the big fuge like you have. YOu could grow what ever kind of algae you wanted. Now if you made say like a show fuge with the cool algae's in there where you could see everything then the reactor could do most of the nutrient export it may work. Keep us posted how it works.
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Not a big fuge at all, only about 6 gallons haha. The sump is a 15 gallon tank with a section for the refugium
 
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For nutrient export, fast growing macroalgae (based on my reading online) would be Chaeto, followed by Ulva and Gracilaria. Caulerpa would also be very fast growing, but considering that it can "go sexual" and wiped out my last reef tank when the spores regrew everywhere in my display . . . I think that Caulerpa is the devil and has no place in a reef tank. I realize that many will disagree with me on that, which is fine. I should add that it was in my display to begin with, and I did not prune it.

I have Chaeto and Dragon's Breath in my refugium, and Dragon's Breath in my display because Dragon's Breath is cool. It also grows and needs trimming, but I find it to be very well behaved. It takes a while to attach, though.

I'd love to get some blue macroalgae as well for the display (Ochtodes or Hypnea), but the one time I added Hypnea my cleaner shrimp and hermits literally annihilated it. I'm taking about 2x4" pieces gone in under 24 hours. One scrap lasted a little over a day, which is my record. I've read that Ochtodes is harder, so hopefully it's more resilient compared to my crustacean crew.
 
I read you can douse mangroves but i here its a lot of upkeep. I suggest just going with what us had and put the crab in the main display tank, he'll eat algae again she. He realizes he has to and the pods that get into the main display will be a treat.
 
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