Refugium Vs. Turf Scrubber??? Let's Vote and Discuss...

[Captmcfly]

I feed a lot but nutrients run like phosphate.01 nitrate 2-5.

Lucky... lol

 

[Richard Wise]

I currently have a little hang on refugium and it’s not really helping the cause. Getting brown algo growth all over the cheto. Only keeping it for pods to grow in. I would like to find a turf scrubber to plumb in the sump eventually.

 

[Richard Wise]

I currently have a little hang on refugium and it’s not really helping the cause. Getting brown algo growth all over the cheto. Only keeping it for pods to grow in. I would like to find a turf scrubber to plumb in the sump eventually.

 

[Richard Wise]

I currently have a little hang on refugium and it’s not really helping the cause. Getting brown algo growth all over the cheto. Only keeping it for pods to grow in. I would like to find a turf scrubber to plumb in the sump eventually.

 

[Rcpilot]

I currently have a little hang on refugium and it’s not really helping the cause. Getting brown algo growth all over the cheto. Only keeping it for pods to grow in. I would like to find a turf scrubber to plumb in the sump eventually.

Increase flow in the refugium. Brown algae can be cause by too low flow.

 

[ReefWithCare]

Fuge mostly for price reasons. A manufactured scrubber is stupid expensive. A DIY scrubber is cheap but tends to bleed light everywhere and messy.

 

[Maacc]

I use both a fuge with chaeto and gracilara, coupled with a turbo aquatics L4 scrubber.
I run a 187 with about 30 fish, mostly wrasses, a couple of tangs, foxface and anthias with various gobies.
I still have about 12 hours of light headroom for fuge and scrubber as the fish grow. I only change water once a year and I sit at 0.02-0.04 phosphate and 10ish nitrate.

 

[Jesterrace]

Chaeto Refugium with Pods for me. My CF Grow bulb has done amazingly well. I have to trim my Chaeto about every 3 weeks in my sump now.

 

[Berickson24]

I have ran both, my chaeto always died, I had good luck with calupera then it all withered away and nutrients spiked, I have great luck with my algae turf scrubber, I only clean my screen every 2-3 weeks. I have friends with great success with a refugium.

Same with no results growing chaeto. Calpura worked very well for me on more than one occasion

 

[atoll]

There is no doubt in my mind after using both the most efficent of the 2 is a wayerfall ATS. If you want pods then a fuge but for it to do the job of nutrient export it must be large enough to do the job.

 

[Hemmdog]

There is no doubt in my mind after using both the most efficent of the 2 is a wayerfall ATS. If you want pods then a fuge but for it to do the job of nutrient export it must be large enough to do the job.

That’s a really good point. My fuge isn’t that large for a 90g. It’s not doing the nutrient export I’m looking for. I recently had to start Nopox to combat this. I’ve heard ATS’s make your house smell like a bayou, any truth to this? My fuge smells a little bayouish, but not quite full blown swamp.

 

[atoll]

That’s a really good point. My fuge isn’t that large for a 90g. It’s not doing the nutrient export I’m looking for. I recently had to start Nopox to combat this. I’ve heard ATS’s make your house smell like a bayou, any truth to this? My fuge smells a little bayouish, but not quite full blown swamp.

Never noticed any smell from my DIY ones or my Turbo Aquatics ATS.

 

[Hemmdog]

Never noticed any smell from my DIY ones or my Turbo Aquatics ATS.

Nice. The wife will appreciate that haha.

 

[rickster]

Using a home made scrubber, within 3-4 weeks it has good algae growth, and keeps nutrients down, I’m using the lights from santa monica scrubbers, great waterproof lights with the right spectrum. Definitely prefer the scrubber over refugium space wise!

 

[sfairtx]

I have a Turbo Aquatics Turf Scrubber (L4) and love it. I have the skimmer offline currently due to space constraints. My tank has been operational for 4 months. Scrubber for about 1 month. And other than a massive Cyano outbreak in the display (which I'm told is normal for new tanks) the scrubber has been building sheets of slime algae. I sent pics of what I scraped off to Bud at Turbo Aquatics and it's thick sheets of slime algae that are growing on top of each other. I'll scrape more frequently until I start to get hair algae in the scrubber. Which, after cleaning last night, I had several small tufts of hair algae starting, I pulled these off the sheets of slime algae and rubbed the hair algae back on both sides of the screen. So far, I have very little, if any forms of slime or hair algae. Once the nutrients reach a balance. I fully expect the hair algae to take off in the scrubber and out perform the nutrient export I need over the cyano in the display. The sheets of cyano will peel off and the nutrients they hold would be consumed by the scrubber. I'm probably 2 months away from defeating the cyano, but, once it's defeated. My rocks will start developing coraline and we're off to the races. Or well, watching Caraline and Corals grow even faster than they are now. I have some SPS that are showing signs of lots of growth over week to week. A branching tree coral that all the branches have nice signs of new growth. I'm assuming they'll all do better once the cyano is gone.

You will get hair algae quicker than 2 months. Mine came in quick.

 

[sfairtx]

So I thought to start a poll and discussion on your thoughts on Refugium's vs Algae Turf Scrubbers.
In the last 2 years, I have setup and explored both avenues of Nutrient Export.

To start off, I have tried 2 different refugium setups. My first was undersized, and barely helped in reduction of nitrates and phosphates. My second attempt at a refugium I used a larger 40 Gallon breeder tank with a Kessil Grow light and had better results. The chaeto would grow and I would have to prune every 3-4 weeks on average. Nutrient were lower but not the lower levels I was looking for. Also I kept getting the weirdest brownish slime algae all over the FUG and chaeto. Fearing Dino's I tore down that setup on two different occasions and restated. FYI never saw this slime anywhere else in my system. I have a 55g SPS tank, 90 gallon FOWLR, Frag tank and 100g Sump on top of this and entire system is plumbed together. So after having issues with Fug I tried a Clearwater Turf Scrubber. Easy to plum into system, and got installed and running quickly. The Screen on the scrubber starts out perfectly clean from day one. It took 3-4 weeks to actually grow turf algae, and after that it was all down hill. I have to scrape sheets of algae of the screen every 7-10 days. My nutrient levels are amazingly low and have little to zero nuisance algae anywhere in system.

In conclusion, I find the Turf Scrubber to be the clear cut winner in natural nutrient export. I find it to be much more efficient then a properly sized refugium, and it takes up less space.

Look forward to thoughts and first hand experiences.

Agree on all points. Love my scrubber.

 

[demonspeedn]

I run both. My Fuge has no Cheato, but about 30lbs of rock. Great for pod reproduction and bacteria.

 

[DarthSimon]

I recall seeing a video from Mark at Melev's Reef, and he stated the refugium size was key in success. I recall him saying they honestly have to be huge.
In any event, I have the space for a big refugium, and tried a few times. I had a Kessil Grow Light on top of a 40 Gallon Breeder with an EccoTech MP10 for flow. The macro algae would grow, but I couldn't stop that brown slime. It would grow all over the refugium, including on the Cheato.

 

[anson2003]

Kessil Grow light and Iron dosing was what did it for me. I can pull a gallon out every month on my 150 gallon system!

 

[DarthSimon]

This was the Video with Mark:

 

[Ytang]

I’ve used both. I prefer a refugium. In my opinion, Algae scrubbers worked too well for my reef tank. My LPS corals were struggling. Also, the scrubber seemed to work better as the week goes on with algae buildup since last scrape. This causes some fluctuations in nutrients, and you’re always shooting towards stability even if that means Nitrates stay at 5 or 10. After switching to a larger refugium with chaeto, along with a $70 adjustible intensity black box grow light, I have been able to keep nutrients in check and more importantly Stable. This has made my corals look better and I spend less time to manage the tank since I only have to grab a handfull of chaeto every few weeks to throw away.
Now, if I had a fish only tank, I would strongly consider a algae scrubber again because I could keep the nutrients at zero with less light energy.