What should I do with my refugium

[Coach v]

I have a 120 gallon mixed reef with a basement sump setup. I have a 29 gallon refugium plumbed in, gravity fed through my frag tank.

The refugium used to grow cheato great than gha took over after a harvest and adding dry rock to my display. I am struggling with gha in my display as well.

I have been thinking about building an upflow algae scrubber. I have and already use a good air pump. I have the light. Just build a small enclosure add a screen and go?

Don't mind the mess in the photo. My dosing pump started leaking, so it got moved over the limewater container. Airline hoses go into hospital tank and refugium but sitting there during cleaning.

 

[Coach v]

I have also been thinking about building a waterfall turf scrubber over my sump. I would add a large pile of rock rubble to the 29 gallon refugium and make it a cryptic/dark refugium.

 

[Dan_P]

I have a 120 gallon mixed reef with a basement sump setup. I have a 29 gallon refugium plumbed in, gravity fed through my frag tank.

The refugium used to grow cheato great than gha took over after a harvest and adding dry rock to my display. I am struggling with gha in my display as well.

I have been thinking about building an upflow algae scrubber. I have and already use a good air pump. I have the light. Just build a small enclosure add a screen and go?

Don't mind the mess in the photo. My dosing pump started leaking, so it got moved over the limewater container. Airline hoses go into hospital tank and refugium but sitting there during cleaning.

What is the nitrate and phosphate level?
How are you managing trace elements?

 

[Coach v]

What is the nitrate and phosphate level?
How are you managing trace elements?

The past year nitrate 0-2 ppm, phosphate 0.00- 0.01 (Hanna ulr). I feed decently heavy, low bio load for now. I go slow. It is football season (I coach varsity on top of my teaching job) so testing has been lacking. Hair algae started around July after an outbreak of dinos.

On 9/10 No3 was 3 ppm and Phos was 0.09. On 10/15 No3 was 0.4 (Hanna hr - new) 2ppm with nyos and Phos was 0.17!

I take care of trace with 15 gallon weekly water changes. I have recently been scrubbing gha off rocks weekly as well.

 

[Dan_P]

The past year nitrate 0-2 ppm, phosphate 0.00- 0.01 (Hanna ulr). I feed decently heavy, low bio load for now. I go slow. It is football season (I coach varsity on top of my teaching job) so testing has been lacking. Hair algae started around July after an outbreak of dinos.

On 9/10 No3 was 3 ppm and Phos was 0.09. On 10/15 No3 was 0.4 (Hanna hr - new) 2ppm with nyos and Phos was 0.17!

I take care of trace with 15 gallon weekly water changes. I have recently been scrubbing gha off rocks weekly as well.

Some thoughts…

Macro algae may not grow well in water with depleted trace elements
Water changes might not be enough to compensate for trace element consumption by algae growth
Macro algae may not grow well with No3 below 2 ppm and low phosphate but GHA will grow well enough to be a pest.

The switch from a macro algae dominated refugium to a GHA dominated one might not be a surprising development.

 

[Coach v]

Here are my water parameters today:

Temp 77.2
Salinity 35ppt
Alk 11.3 (Hanna)
Calcium 425 (red sea)
Magnesium 1350 (aquaforest)
Nitrate 3.3 (Hanna)
Phos 0.14 (Hanna)

 

[Seansea]

I use an algae scrubber and they are great for keeping the uglies out of your display. It will chew up trace elements so that is something to monitor. I dose all for reef and still have to add captiv8 trace elements. I icp quarterly

 

[Dan_P]

Here are my water parameters today:

Temp 77.2
Salinity 35ppt
Alk 11.3 (Hanna)
Calcium 425 (red sea)
Magnesium 1350 (aquaforest)
Nitrate 3.3 (Hanna)
Phos 0.14 (Hanna)

Looks like plenty of fertilizer for any type of algae to grow.

 

[Dan_P]

Just thinking out loud…

The primary function of an algae scrubber is to consume nitrate, and secondarily, it consumes phosphate and some trace elements. I am not convinced that the device reduces algae growth all that much in the display tank. One reason behind this thinking is that nitrate and phosphate concentration levels are poor predictors of whether algae grows in the display tank.

 

[BR260354]

I have an external refugium setup. Lots of GHA in there but the display is fine. Chaeto is hanging in there. You could use your refugium for pod production. You could ditch or lower the intensity of the light.