Refugiums: Are they worth the extra time, money & work?

[el aguila]

In my opinion it really depends more on your system and livestock than anything.

I’ve been in the hobby a good 15 years. When I had SPS trying to eliminate all nutrients back in the day, I never had much success growing cheato in a sump.

Now I’m doing softies, over feeding my tank feeding coral, and my cheato grows wild full of copepods and amphipods. After a year of this, I’m not having any problems with byropsis or cyno. I wouldn’t feed corals or tank heavily without cheato to absorb excess nutrients.

 

[najer]

Yes, actually two!
I designed the tank to be as low maintenance as possible without equipment and came up with this.
1650 x 650 x 450 mm shallow, it has a full glass divide at 1000 mm with a 70 mm swim through hole for the fish and creatures.
There is a sump refugium as well with cheato.
No waterchanges unless required, currently doing very small waterchanges and running carbon in bags due to a fish introduction oops!
I don't run a "method" and dose manually.
The display refugium to the right is approx 200 L / 50 G over half full of caulerpa prolifera, I don't really test so please don't ask for numbers, I watch my corals in the display!

Oh and I don't view it from the front, left end is my desk end, the display is scaped for my view!

 

[Greg Witherell]

I am not running one due to space in my sump. I would either need to remove my skimmer or run an external one. My experience is the skimmer keeps my nutrients down enough that I would be hesitant to remove it. ( I had a skimmer issue and no3 and po4 went through the roof). I currently run a reactor with chaeto and my no3 runs about 5 and po4 is about .1 so not sure I would want to change, after all if it ain't broke....

 

[Kevan Sharp]

I had a tank about 20 years ago that had a refugium, using miracle mud. I got rid of the bio balls and let the mud work. It kept my tank parameters in good shape.
Now, though, refugiums are different, and are used to grow algae. I've done a fair amount of research lately because my nitrates are high (30-40) and NOPOX and other methods are not helping at all. After all the research, the consensus seems to be that they are inefficient and take a lot of space and maintenance. I have looked at various algae solutions, and have decided to opt for an algae reactor. They are expensive, but it seems the best solution. They are not without headache and have to be maintained, just like everything else. After a few weeks of research I have opted for the Pax Bellum. It is more expensive, but the design seems very innovative and the lighting system is very well thought out. It has not yet arrived, and who knows if I made the right decision, but I needed to do something and do not have room to add a refugium. The Pax Bellum N18 has a footprint of about 6 inches base and 16 inches tall.

 

[Scrubber_steve]

I had a tank about 20 years ago that had a refugium, using miracle mud. I got rid of the bio balls and let the mud work. It kept my tank parameters in good shape.
Now, though, refugiums are different, and are used to grow algae. I've done a fair amount of research lately because my nitrates are high (30-40) and NOPOX and other methods are not helping at all. After all the research, the consensus seems to be that they are inefficient and take a lot of space and maintenance. I have looked at various algae solutions, and have decided to opt for an algae reactor. They are expensive, but it seems the best solution. They are not without headache and have to be maintained, just like everything else. After a few weeks of research I have opted for the Pax Bellum. It is more expensive, but the design seems very innovative and the lighting system is very well thought out. It has not yet arrived, and who knows if I made the right decision, but I needed to do something and do not have room to add a refugium. The Pax Bellum N18 has a footprint of about 6 inches base and 16 inches tall.

Fuges can be hit or miss depending on algae growth success. Many people do have trouble keeping chaeto. But when growing well, & consistently, fuges work.
Sorry, but I'm not sold on chaeto reactors. Various reasons, but the chaeto dying off after a period of time seems a recurring problem.
I like algae scrubbers. Easy to keep algae as they self seed from algae already in the system. Small footprint compared to a suitably sized fuge.

 

[pryan1008]

I had one on my last tank. Used a cheap light so my chaeto didnt really grow. Great for farming pods though.

Want to set one up on my new tank any recommendations on lights for a 11"x11" fuge thinking about a kessil h160 since I've had good luck with kessil for my display.

 

[Rukk]

I don't have an applicable answer to the poll. My original plan was to have a fuge but space didn't lend itself to one. So, I have a CWS-50 algae scrubber. Have struggled some controlling nitrates and phosphate. A bit of vodka tamed the nitrate issue, but phosphate is still something I have to watch. This is in spite of having a RO regal 150int skimmer running 24/7 and a GFO reactor in addition to the scrubber on a WB 100.3. I feel I do feed the fish and corals kinda heavy so there's that too. Tank inhabitants look pretty happy and growth is I feel good. Zero nuisance algae.

I like the scrubber for space and ease and it definitely grows algae. If I had space I would likely run a fuge.

Always a work in progress for me trying to get things really fine tuned.

 

[don_chuwish]

Mine isn't much of an investment or time suck. Just a small section of the sump walled off with some extra acrylic and an inexpensive PAR38 light. chaeto grows pretty quickly and needs harvesting often.

 

[mkwarner77]

a big yes for me, didn't have one so I built it. improved the appearance of the display by taking everything out but the power heads. I notice the tank temp dropped 2 degrees, and increased the stability of the tank. My tanks only a 46 gl so stability was an issue. and less gha growing in display

 

[Jfinn]

I ran a fuge in back of my AIO (IM 20) for a year and was convinced it made a big difference.

maybe I was fooling myself but the tank thrived after I finally got some chaeto to stick - just dicentegrated first couple tries

Trying to replicate that success on RSR 350. No luck with Chaeto so far and battling GHA/briopsis/bubble and some leafy algae :-(

 

[Michigan Reefer]

Can or should we run a refugium if nitrate and phosphate levels are typically low or even undetectable? I would love a pod sanctuary, but it may be difficult to grow macro algae when already trying to raise these levels slightly. The reverse light schedule to help stabilize Ph is also a big pro for refugiums.

 

[TheOldSalt]

Have people forgotten the bad old days before we invented fuges? Coral growth and survival was terrible. When refugiums first came on the scene, people were skeptical. After much testing, though, we learned that the effects of having a fuge were very significant, huge even, and I'm talking around 40 percent increased survival and much better growth. Tom Frakes famously set up two tanks side by side which were identical in every way possible except one, with that one being that one tank had a fuge.
The normal tank produced the typical results we used to typically get at the time, which weren't great.
The fuge using tank astounded everyone with 90 percent coral survival over one year, which at the time was unheard of, and growth rates about double the norm.
Are refugiums worth it? They're pretty much essential.

 

[chowberg]

I have a Lifereef set up with a refugium separate from sump. I haven't really done a before/after tests on nutrient export, but at minimum in increases my water volume and gives a place for my pods to grow.

 

[DancingWind]

Try adding iron?

And Manganese, Iodine (well iodine evaporates on his own but cheto needs it also), Molybdenum, Boron and a coupel others
Seriously do an ICP test and you will see.
I run cheto + 2 types of caulerpa and along with ~0 po4 and ~5 no3 my metal levels are depressed ... its a bit annoying that I constantly have to adjust a bunch of metals.
But if you are in US there is this things called ChetoGro from brightwell (I cannot find it in EU) and it has exactly all the stuff icp test says my tank lacks. There are alternative metal cocktails but those are tailored for corals and ... my copper and aluminum levels are fine. So im stuck with individual elements.

Anyone know alternatives for Chetogro with identical or similar mix (I'm interested in Mo +Mn + Fe + B)

 

[Gogoggansgo]

I use to have a huge nitrate issue, easily over 100ppm. No matter how much or how often I did water changes I couldn't get it under control. No idea where the nitrates were coming from. Only had 1 fish that I hardly fed and a small cuc. I added a bunch of chaeto and in no time at all my nitrates got knocked down to about 5ppm.

tbis is my main reason why i have some micro in my display tank, it looks cool and helps with the nitrates a lot

 

[living_tribunal]

And Manganese, Iodine (well iodine evaporates on his own but cheto needs it also), Molybdenum, Boron and a coupel others
Seriously do an ICP test and you will see.
I run cheto + 2 types of caulerpa and along with ~0 po4 and ~5 no3 my metal levels are depressed ... its a bit annoying that I constantly have to adjust a bunch of metals.
But if you are in US there is this things called ChetoGro from brightwell (I cannot find it in EU) and it has exactly all the stuff icp test says my tank lacks. There are alternative metal cocktails but those are tailored for corals and ... my copper and aluminum levels are fine. So im stuck with individual elements.

Anyone know alternatives for Chetogro with identical or similar mix (I'm interested in Mo +Mn + Fe + B)

Mine grows fine, I’m pretty sure you need some detectable phosphates to aid growth. I’ve always been interested in trying out chaeto grow just to see if it works at all. Might pick up some this weekend.

 

[DancingWind]

Mine grows fine, I’m pretty sure you need some detectable phosphates to aid growth. I’ve always been interested in trying out chaeto grow just to see if it works at all. Might pick up some this weekend.

Well Yeah no3 and po4 - those are obvious.
I'm talking about non-obvious factors - refugiums are fantastic at no3 and po4 (too well in my case) but they also strip metals.
Once I started properly dosing triton core7 some of my corals developed a very nice electric green colour (probably because iron deficiency improved).
Is just sent out another ICP - will see what's the state after 1 month of full core 7 regime.

 

[living_tribunal]

Well Yeah no3 and po4 - those are obvious.
I'm talking about non-obvious factors - refugiums are fantastic at no3 and po4 (too well in my case) but they also strip metals.
Once I started properly dosing triton core7 some of my corals developed a very nice electric green colour (probably because iron deficiency improved).
Is just sent out another ICP - will see what's the state after 1 month of full core 7 regime.

Good points and I like the specifics. I’ve never thought about the finer details of what exactly chaeto consumes as I’ve never had issues with it. These are good things to know if I ever notice my chaeto dying while detectable nutrients are present in the column.

+1

 

[SantaMonica]

Yes iron is needed with any green photosynthetic organism

 

[Paulie069]

Yes iron is needed with any green photosynthetic organism

The information I mean face in this thread extremely helpful to a reef virgin such as myself this is what our website is all about the people with experience and knowledge passing on information because they have done been there and done that You all rock R2R