Alex's Nano Reef
Don't tell my Landlord
im gonna be running a refugium on my new tank and wondering when should i introduce the refugium algae and pods..
When is the best time to introduce a refugium
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ReeferReefer
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You can not expect algae to grow without nutrients. Once the tank is cycled and is being fed, its fine to add the fuge.
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I wait for a couple of months with my new tank. The reason was that I wanted to be sure that my bacterial community works well before adding the fuge. A stable environment and some surplus nutrients in the water.
Sincerely Lasse
Sincerely Lasse
I second this. No need for the fuge to consume things the biological community may consume during its development. In some instances, the biological community of the tank, may consume most of the nutrients and a fuge is not needed.
Kyl
And how does it feel like, to wake up in the sun
@Lasse is bang on.
I would wait until N/P levels exceed your current nutrient export methods (skimmer / waterchange), then start slow until you find a happy balance. My largest regret in both tanks was doing a refugium day 1, nothing but lack of detectable nutrient issues for a year, which lead to dinos and cyano.
To this day, I still can only run my fuge lighting for an hour a day, else nitrate becomes undetectable and my SPS lose colour, rather quickly.
I would wait until N/P levels exceed your current nutrient export methods (skimmer / waterchange), then start slow until you find a happy balance. My largest regret in both tanks was doing a refugium day 1, nothing but lack of detectable nutrient issues for a year, which lead to dinos and cyano.
To this day, I still can only run my fuge lighting for an hour a day, else nitrate becomes undetectable and my SPS lose colour, rather quickly.
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We would have to agree overall with the bulk of the group and say once you start adding bio-load from fish and feeding the tank, a refugium will definitely help maintain balance. That being said, super low nutrients being an issue can actually be resolved by reducing chemical and mechanical filtration methods instead of reducing your refugium lighting (which can ultimately cause issues with your macroalgae dying back) or selecting the right macroalgaes for your system and needs. Skimmers and chemical filtration can definitely be reduced over time (placed on timers) or bioload increased slowly over time to find the right balance for SPS without sacrificing natural filtration or macroalgae health! In ULN/VLN systems, a refugium would likely contain no fast growing macroalgae (swapping to only slower growing red or low nutrient tolerant brown macros over fast growing macros like chaeto or sea lettuce) which will reduce overall nutrient uptake while still maintaining a regular light schedule for the plants which will keep them healthier, and so on! We talk about this and more over at https://www.algaebarn.com/blog/ and are happy to answer any questions you might have about refugiums and methodologies for keeping a healthy tank naturally by emailing [email protected] or giving us a call!
OP
OP
Alex's Nano Reef
Don't tell my Landlord
Well everyone my alerts are screwed. Thank you for all the responses yeah I might have the fuge on for the extra water volume but I won’t be running it until I add a few fish and get things going
