What do we need to start refugium?

[BummersReef]

So gonna push the go for our sump/refug today or tomorrow ... Mixing saltwater now. Our tank has just been sitting and cycling for three weeks ... No livestock aside from a few hitch hikers from live rock.
Do we need to put anything in the refug to start? I know we will add some sand from DT and some live rock from DT but as we have no live stock yet do we need anything else in refug for now? Refug and sump are in separate 100 gal totes .... Sump is the lower one ... Sump and refug in basement


I have HITS real bad it's making me crazy btw

 

[Shep]

Lights, slow water flow through it and macro algae (Rock and sand help too)....refugiums can be really simple

 

[Bunnee911]

Slow down. If you aren't having fun, you ain't doin it right.

 

[BummersReef]

Slow down. If you aren't having fun, you ain't doin it right.

slow down??? I must have used the wrong term. I have ITGMHIT syndrome real bad... Itching to get my hands in tank ... We have been poster people for patient tank set up. We started in early May and well I am just really looking forward to looking at something besides rock slowly very slowly turning brown. Hubby is having fun doing major plumbing in basement but wife wants a critter. But wife will wait

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

So gonna push the go for our sump/refug today or tomorrow ... Mixing saltwater now. Our tank has just been sitting and cycling for three weeks ... No livestock aside from a few hitch hikers from live rock.
Do we need to put anything in the refug to start? I know we will add some sand from DT and some live rock from DT but as we have no live stock yet do we need anything else in refug for now? Refug and sump are in separate 100 gal totes .... Sump is the lower one ... Sump and refug in basement


I have HITS real bad it's making me crazy btw

HAHAHA. I should have trade marked that.

Keep in mind macros is a plant and they need food. In a newer tank there isnt a lot of that yet.
and +1 Shep. my hob refugium is just macros and flow.

LR in a sump w sand and rock in a tank is the berlin method. and a fine place to start.

If the rock was live and cured and you use live sand, the tank is cycled and very likely there may be just enough die off and rot to sustain the macros.(thats what the UGLY phase is kinda) so Keep in mind, the macros eat the same stuff the corals do. we like a refugium to eat up EXESS nutrients, as well as stabilize a systems PH. so you may not want to add a whole bunch of macros right off the bat unless you are having a serious ugly phase. No a SERIOUS ugly phase.

one reason i dont like gfo, its my theory as to why folks with a new tank running those reactors right off the bat have issues with thier corals. No food.

Some say snake oil but miracle mud refugiums "eco system method" are a substrait with nutrients in them. spendy though and similar to a dsb. The pro and con of a bare bottom fuge you can have a place to trap and clean out detritus, as anyplace the water flows through generally work as a gravity filter. you can add LR or deep live sand to the fuge later. This is sometimes called a remote DSB. and combined is a fuge w a dsb.
Live bagged sand I have and still do add to a tank or fuge with no real worry. Live rock only depending on how clean it was when I got it, or if I cured/cycled it myself from dry. so it dosent need to come from the display really.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

how are your tests going BTW?
how Ugly is the tank and have you turned on the lights yet?

 

[BummersReef]

Hi! thanks for info. Tank is only "a little ugly" IMO. Here's a pic

there is brown stuff (diatoms?) growing on the dry rock we put in at the start. and also some on some of the sand (you can see a line of the brown stuff in this photo up at front of glass). The "live" rock we got from LFS has some green hair algae but not a whole lot. I did have both a big feather duster and a tube worm on pieces of the live rock but I think they are dead now as I haven't seen them out in about 5 days or more. I put in some phytoplankton green stuff every day or so for the little feather duster things that are on the live rock. Our water tests have been real good every time ... zero ammonia, zero nitrite and trace nitrate. kH was a little low once but after adding some Fusion 2 it is up again to 8 or 10. Phosphates, calcium and salinity are good. Wait, I did have .1 nitrite about 2 days ago.
We got conflicting advice about putting sand in the refug from LFS. Hubby thinks we have too much in DT and wants to throw some in but I would rather not - just one less thing to worry about in refug, as we can always add sand later. Hubby did put in some unused dry rock in the sump last night. We are not going to be adding any livestock until July 18 or later.
To be honest, the whole sumping in the basement has hubby a little frustrated as it just ballooned to a lot of confusing pipe work. I am sure we will be glad we did it once it is all up and running. We used two big "horse troughs" from farm supply for sump and refug and the hole that was already in those at the bottom is leaking. Just a lot of connections etc. plus the RO system is way more plumbing than hubby has ever done. He was past the point of "fun" last night but I'm hoping he is better today.

oh --- we are lighting DT with just florescent bulbs during the day. Planning on getting cheap lamp with high calvin bulb for the refug.