Refugiums... explain it to me like I'm 5

[New&no clue]

I'm really sorry, but the title of your post made me think of my favorite show of all time, The Office. Thank you!

That's what I was thinking too!

 

[New&no clue]

Thank you all for the responses. So I have seen my Phosphates drop since I started this from .37 to .15, however my nitrates have increased from 20 to 30. I was worried that I was doing something wrong or that I should be "harvesting" each week and that Nitrates were being released back into the system.

I don't see any dead spots. All is a nice green color. Because there is little flow in the sump I stick my tongs in there and swirl it around some each day. I also rotate the basket each week so a different side is facing the light.

 

[New&no clue]

looked at your build thread. how are you going to do a refugium in your sump? space seems limited.

It's for a different tank then the one on my build thread

 

[Webslinger]

remove 2/3 of algae when you run out of growing room (make sure you shake the algae in the DT to release all the critters). A fuge (refuge) is an area where you can grow out critters/Macro's which won't be eaten by predators. The critters will migrate to the display tank through the return pump where they will be eaten. It keeps my mandarin, wrasse, hawkfish fat and happy.

 

[Josh_boss]

Sometimes there are detritus build up in the algae and you don’t want to shake that into your tank, I literally take mine out place it into a 5 gallon bucket and shoot it with the hose. All the nasty gets out Then I place it back into the sump. I never have issues with cheato dying. There are pods in the algae but I’m not worried about it because the cheato being clean is more important. If your cheato is dark green then There is nitrates and phosphates that is feeding it so let it grow. I have a chamber in my 45 gallon sump that runs a 5k light bulb and it’s on 24/7. I don’t tumble my algae and it’s THICK with no dead spots even on the bottom. I rip off the top layer if there is nasties on it like bugs or brown. I also rip it when people ask me for some lol. There is no real rule on how much to rip or keep, if a bunch of cheato works for your tank then let it grow.

 

[LegendaryCG]

Throw away about 1/3 after it grows. Your growing desired algae in place of undesired that both have to compete for the same nutrients. As long as you manually remove it occasionally you are going to see a reduction. If you let it die in your tank it will release them back into the water.

 

[Kdub Koral Guy]

I have a Nuvo 30L with high Phosphates and Nitrates, a lot of people suggested to add a refugium to help bring the levels down. As I like to go natural before I go chemical I thought I would try it. I bought a light and some chaeto, my chaeto is growing away. But I'm still lost on what I'm actually doing here. Maybe my questions isn't really explain a refuguim... maybe it is explain how chaeto is used as a nutrient export?

I have a Fluval Nano all in one and got the exact same Intank Media baskets and made a Refugium as well. What I found was, the Chaeto grows so fast that it actually starts to die of in part and ends up causing more nutrients in the tank. IMO refugiums should be for in a sump with a larger area that you can also put sand or miracle mud and have other critters living in there as well. For Nitrates and Phospahets on a small tank like that I would just use a bit of Phosguard and/or some Chemipure Blue.

 

[muzikalmatt]

From your pictures it looks like the chaeto is healthy and growing extremely well. I have the exact same setup in my IM Nuvo 40 and the chaeto looks very similar filling up the inTank media basket.

Typically you only want to harvest/remove chaeto when it runs out of growing room or if you notice dead or dying pieces. By stirring up the fuge area and rotating the basket you're making sure all of the chaeto stays healthy and growing which should prevent most of those issues.

I would be careful when you do remove the chaeto though. I think I removed too much at one point and it didn't grow as well. One other thing to keep an eye on is removing any corralline algae that grows in the fuge chamber, particularly the back glass as it will prevent the light from penetrating into the chaeto.

Regarding your nutrients, if nothing else has changed about your filtration and/or feeding regimen, you should see your nitrates going down. The chaeto binds up the nutrients to grow and then the nutrients are totally removed from the tank when you harvest/remove the chaeto. The only way the chaeto would dump nutrients back into the tank is if some of it died before you removed it.

Are you running any other filtration on the system with the refugium? I'm using mechanical filtration (filter floss), a small skimmer (IM Ghost Desktop size), and Chemi-pure blue in addition to the fuge and my nutrients stay around 5ppm/0.03ppm.

 

[Webslinger]

Sometimes there are detritus build up in the algae and you don’t want to shake that into your tank, I literally take mine out place it into a 5 gallon bucket and shoot it with the hose. All the nasty gets out Then I place it back into the sump. I never have issues with cheato dying. There are pods in the algae but I’m not worried about it because the cheato being clean is more important. If your cheato is dark green then There is nitrates and phosphates that is feeding it so let it grow. I have a chamber in my 45 gallon sump that runs a 5k light bulb and it’s on 24/7. I don’t tumble my algae and it’s THICK with no dead spots even on the bottom. I rip off the top layer if there is nasties on it like bugs or brown. I also rip it when people ask me for some lol. There is no real rule on how much to rip or keep, if a bunch of cheato works for your tank then let it grow.

Why are you putting back /cleaning it. Throw it out and have it grow again. And definitely shake it out in your sump. I remove all but a fistful and it grows back great in a month. It’s for removing nutrients. Let it go wild!

 

[muzikalmatt]

Why are you putting back /cleaning it. Throw it out and have it grow again. And definitely shake it out in your sump.

Yeah, I've never had issues with shaking my inTank media basket in the back chamber and just letting the detritus flow through the return chamber. It all ultimately ends up in the filter floss and sometimes I'll see some pods come through that my fish can feed on. I typically do this every 3-4 days to keep the fuge chamber from getting full of detritus.

 

[snowhite]

My wife and I are fairly careful about our livestock load and amount of feeding. In all but one of our 5 tanks we're fine with just growing Chaeto to control Nitrates and Phosphate. The other tank however is an SPS tank and it also has a Skimmer, though I only have to run that 4-5 hours a day to keep things where I want it.

 

[Josh_boss]

Why are you putting back /cleaning it. Throw it out and have it grow again. And definitely shake it out in your sump. I remove all but a fistful and it grows back great in a month. It’s for removing nutrients. Let it go wild!

With the nutrient load in my aquarium it tends to need a lot of cheato to keep the brown not growing on my sand, if I rip off the cheato and let it grow then it’s letting my corals and fish go through a nitrate and phosphate roller coaster(waiting for the cheato to catch up again). If I don’t clean it there tends to get a brown buildup that will cloud the tank if disturbed, almost like mud/dirt. When I rinse it in the bucket too, all the clear loose algae will all come out of the cheato and then I’m placing only the beautiful healthy green algae back. I say people need to do what works best for their systems and follow there regiment.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

I have a Nuvo 30L with high Phosphates and Nitrates, a lot of people suggested to add a refugium to help bring the levels down. As I like to go natural before I go chemical I thought I would try it. I bought a light and some chaeto, my chaeto is growing away. But I'm still lost on what I'm actually doing here. Maybe my questions isn't really explain a refuguim... maybe it is explain how chaeto is used as a nutrient export?

chaeto to me is like a sponge, a sponge absorbs water and then you go to the sink and you ring it out and then do it again. Same with macroalgae it absorbs dissolved Organics like nitrates and phosphates and such, then you remove a certain amount from your refugium and do it all over again , but you let the macroalgae grow more before you remove more
oh yeah, it's talk to me like a four-year-old, just like Denzel Washington my man says. in the movie Philadelphia, I think

 

[Josh_boss]

Yeah, I've never had issues with shaking my inTank media basket in the back chamber and just letting the detritus flow through the return chamber. It all ultimately ends up in the filter floss and sometimes I'll see some pods come through that my fish can feed on. I typically do this every 3-4 days to keep the fuge chamber from getting full of detritus.

If I shake up the algae all the broken pieces go into my DT and get caught all over my sps and my tangs eat it then get it stuck in there rears. I’ll post a pic of the dirty stuff that will go into my tank if I shake it up in the sump.

 

[Doctorgori]

Kinda interesting challenge...
the topic has an interesting evolution through the years, if anyone has time checkout: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_scrubber

 

[New&no clue]

Again, thanks everyone for the great information. So is there a way to "dial in" my chaeto like I would with my skimmer? For example when I get Phosphates and Nitrates to the level I want, how do I keep them there?

 

[muzikalmatt]

Again, thanks everyone for the great information. So is there a way to "dial in" my chaeto like I would with my skimmer? For example when I get Phosphates and Nitrates to the level I want, how do I keep them there?

I believe the only way to dial in your chaeto's growth and nutrient consumption is by adjusting the photoperiod. I think I started my light's photoperiod at ~10 hours and have since increased that to 12 hours. Typically you want to run your refugium lighting opposite your tank's lighting (at night when your tank's lights are off) to help balance pH. However, you could leave your refugium light on all day and night if you want to maximize potential growth and nutrient consumption.

 

[New&no clue]

I believe the only way to dial in your chaeto's growth and nutrient consumption is by adjusting the photoperiod. I think I started my light's photoperiod at ~10 hours and have since increased that to 12 hours. Typically you want to run your refugium lighting opposite your tank's lighting (at night when your tank's lights are off) to help balance pH. However, you could leave your refugium light on all day and night if you want to maximize potential growth and nutrient consumption.

Okay so it's more about light than quantity of chaeto. I run mine for 10 hours too, opposite my tank lights. So when I get levels where I want should I be reducing the hours the lights are on to decrease the growth?

 

[SMSREEF]

looked at your build thread. how are you going to do a refugium in your sump? space seems limited.

Look at the first post with the pic.
Chaeto has already more than tripled. It looks pretty good for growing some for a 30 gallon and maybe even as a refuge for pods.

I would probably remove 1/3 of the chaeto in it now.

 

[hawkbait]

remove 2/3 of algae when you run out of growing room (make sure you shake the algae in the DT to release all the critters). A fuge (refuge) is an area where you can grow out critters/Macro's which won't be eaten by predators. The critters will migrate to the display tank through the return pump where they will be eaten. It keeps my mandarin, wrasse, hawkfish fat and happy.

How long did it take using a refugium to provide enough food for the fish? I'm highly interested in getting a mandarin