A Pod Fuge

[drblank1]

Over the last 2 years, I have struggled to keep nitrates and phosphates over 0. Even with heavy feeding and reducing skimming, I struggle to keep both nutrients at proper levels. So much so that I just had a really bad cyano outbreak. Got it fixed with chemiclean and am dosing nitrates and phosphates now.

I have a 70 gallon display tank and a 20 gallon diy fuge where I previously grew chaeto. when I grew chaeto, it was a bare tank with a powerhead to keep the chaeto tumbling. Since I don't need to filter for phosphates, my thought it to create an environment conducive to a thriving pod population. The sump return pump's pipe currently branches off into the fuge and I control the flow with a gate valve. Then the fuge overflows back to the display tank. See below.



So my question is if my goal it to create a "refuge" environment where pods can flourish and make their way back to the display tank, what would be the best setup? My initial thoughts are to add sand, live rock, and a few plants with a basic light. Also, would I need some sort of clean-up crew as the fuge matures? Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Subsea]

Over the last 2 years, I have struggled to keep nitrates and phosphates over 0. Even with heavy feeding and reducing skimming, I struggle to keep both nutrients at proper levels. So much so that I just had a really bad cyano outbreak. Got it fixed with chemiclean and am dosing nitrates and phosphates now.

I have a 70 gallon display tank and a 20 gallon diy fuge where I previously grew chaeto. when I grew chaeto, it was a bare tank with a powerhead to keep the chaeto tumbling. Since I don't need to filter for phosphates, my thought it to create an environment conducive to a thriving pod population. The sump return pump's pipe currently branches off into the fuge and I control the flow with a gate valve. Then the fuge overflows back to the display tank. See below.



So my question is if my goal it to create a "refuge" environment where pods can flourish and make their way back to the display tank, what would be the best setup? My initial thoughts are to add sand, live rock, and a few plants with a basic light. Also, would I need some sort of clean-up crew as the fuge matures? Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

Kudoes to setting up pod refugium. I suggest skipping the light and run cryptic refugium with a mud filter. I allow detritus to accumulate to MULM which moves organic carbon up the food chain to feed live food to hungry mouths using the microbial loop.

Here is what PaulB says about MULM:

"Mulm" in a reef tank

I think one of the most important, and least understood or mentioned things in a reef tank is "mulm". That stuff that grows in the dark portions of a tank if it is set up long enough. "Mulm" is a combination of algae, sponges, bacteria, pods, worms, detritus, poop and any thing else that can be p...

wamas.org

”I think one of the most important, and least understood or mentioned things in a reef tank is "mulm". That stuff that grows in the dark portions of a tank if it is set up long enough. "Mulm" is a combination of algae, sponges, bacteria, pods, worms, detritus, poop and any thing else that can be propagated or grown in the dark. I realize most people would immediately get out the sponge, razor blade or grenade to remove it but there is a word I like to use to describe those people. That word is "wrong". Mulm is a natural product that you will find in the sea all over the world. Our tanks run on bacteria, algae and a food chain. Bacteria and a food chain are dependent on having a place to reproduce. Mulm is the perfect place. Rocks and glass are flat surfaces that are only two dimensional. Mulm makes these places three dimensional allowing much more space for bacteria and microscopic organisms to grow and do the macarana. (Then love to dance) Pods, which are needed for any small fish also need to eat and their numbers are directly related to how much food they can get their hands on (or whatever pods use to eat with) The more food, the more pods, the more pods, the easier to keep smaller fish. Larger fish such as copperbands and angels also eat pods.
Many people try to keep fish such as pipefish, mandarins or other dragonettes in a sterile tank and while feeding them a couple of times a day with tiger pods or some other expensive food. Those types of fish will not live for long in such a tank and they certainly won't spawn which I consider the "only" criteria to determine the state of health for any paired fish.
Mulm (after a while, maybe a few years) should grow on the back and sides of glass as well as under rocks.
Here in this picture of my clingfish, the mulm appears green. It is really brownish and that fish is on the side of my tank. I brightened up the picture and turned it sideways because it was in the dark and the fish was hard to see.
There is a thick layer of it on the back of my tank where my mandarins and pipefish like to hunt. My long spined urchin also grazes there most of the time as there is not much algae in my tank for him to eat. He is many years old as are the mandarins and pipefish and they are dependent on this food source.
A sterile tank IMO is the biggest problem we have keeping certain fish healthy.”

 

[drblank1]

So, can I make this very simple and still get a good sustaining pod populating. Just a bunch of live rock and rubble. No sand, no light, no plants?

 

[drblank1]

So, can I make this very simple and still get a good sustaining pod populating. Just a bunch of live rock and rubble. No sand, no light, no plants?

Any thoughts on going "bare-bones" on a fuge?

 

[drblank1]

 

[TokenReefer]

Any thoughts on going "bare-bones" on a fuge?

What do you mean bare bones?

 

[RedoubtReef]

Kudoes to setting up pod refugium. I suggest skipping the light and run cryptic refugium with a mud filter. I allow detritus to accumulate to MULM which moves organic carbon up the food chain to feed live food to hungry mouths using the microbial loop.

Here is what PaulB says about MULM:

"Mulm" in a reef tank

I think one of the most important, and least understood or mentioned things in a reef tank is "mulm". That stuff that grows in the dark portions of a tank if it is set up long enough. "Mulm" is a combination of algae, sponges, bacteria, pods, worms, detritus, poop and any thing else that can be p...

wamas.org

”I think one of the most important, and least understood or mentioned things in a reef tank is "mulm". That stuff that grows in the dark portions of a tank if it is set up long enough. "Mulm" is a combination of algae, sponges, bacteria, pods, worms, detritus, poop and any thing else that can be propagated or grown in the dark. I realize most people would immediately get out the sponge, razor blade or grenade to remove it but there is a word I like to use to describe those people. That word is "wrong". Mulm is a natural product that you will find in the sea all over the world. Our tanks run on bacteria, algae and a food chain. Bacteria and a food chain are dependent on having a place to reproduce. Mulm is the perfect place. Rocks and glass are flat surfaces that are only two dimensional. Mulm makes these places three dimensional allowing much more space for bacteria and microscopic organisms to grow and do the macarana. (Then love to dance) Pods, which are needed for any small fish also need to eat and their numbers are directly related to how much food they can get their hands on (or whatever pods use to eat with) The more food, the more pods, the more pods, the easier to keep smaller fish. Larger fish such as copperbands and angels also eat pods.
Many people try to keep fish such as pipefish, mandarins or other dragonettes in a sterile tank and while feeding them a couple of times a day with tiger pods or some other expensive food. Those types of fish will not live for long in such a tank and they certainly won't spawn which I consider the "only" criteria to determine the state of health for any paired fish.
Mulm (after a while, maybe a few years) should grow on the back and sides of glass as well as under rocks.
Here in this picture of my clingfish, the mulm appears green. It is really brownish and that fish is on the side of my tank. I brightened up the picture and turned it sideways because it was in the dark and the fish was hard to see.
There is a thick layer of it on the back of my tank where my mandarins and pipefish like to hunt. My long spined urchin also grazes there most of the time as there is not much algae in my tank for him to eat. He is many years old as are the mandarins and pipefish and they are dependent on this food source.
A sterile tank IMO is the biggest problem we have keeping certain fish healthy.”

post some pics of your setup!

 

[Subsea]

post some pics of your setup!

I have 5 differrent systems, the oldest is 25 years at 75G and that is my tank thread. Quite a lot of pictures there.

Lights were off 2 hours and turned on to take full tank picture

 

[RedoubtReef]

I have 5 differrent systems, the oldest is 25 years at 75G and that is my tank thread. Quite a lot of pictures there.

Lights were off 2 hours and turned on to take full tank picture

I meant the MULM part of it

 

[Subsea]

I meant the MULM part of it

75G display was set up 25 years ago as a Jaubert Plenum with 6” DSB and on bottom was a 30G algae refugium with mud filter. System was bought used and I never added or replaced any miracle mud. In twenty years, detritus accumulated 0.5” and was spongy to the touch and is crawling with worms.. Five years ago, I converted algae/mud refugium into a cryptic refugium with a mud filter. I turned out the lights and composted tomatoes. Eggcrate was stacked up in mud to prevent rock immersed in mud.

The last two pictures are 40G sump for 120G on top. Note the last picture with exposed eggcrate and detritus at about 3/8” in 5 years.

 

[Subsea]

So, can I make this very simple and still get a good sustaining pod populating. Just a bunch of live rock and rubble. No sand, no light, no plants?

Yes, that would make an excellent zooplankton generator.

Do not overlook the benefit of cryptic sponges for processing DOC 20 fold more effective than granular activated carbon.

Project: Testing the sponge-loop hypothesis for Caribbean coral reefs | BCO-DMO

www.bco-dmo.org

Sponge Loop:
“The cycling of carbon from the water-column to the benthos is central to marine ecosystem function; for coral reefs, this process begins with photosynthesis by seaweeds and coral symbionts, which then exude a substantial portion of fixed carbon as dissolved organic carbon (DOC) that may be lost to currents and tides. But if sponges, with their enormous water filtering capacity, can return DOC from the water column to the reef, it would represent a major unrecognized source of carbon cycling. The "sponge-loop hypothesis" has the potential to transform our understanding of carbon cycling on coral reefs. Building on preliminary data from studies of the giant barrel sponge, this project will investigate each of the three components of the sponge-loop hypothesis for ten common barrel, vase and tube-forming species that span a range of associations with microbial symbionts, from high microbial abundance (HMA) to low microbial abundance (LMA) in the sponge tissue. Specifically, the experimental approach will include InEx techniques (comparative sampling of seawater immediately before and after passage through the sponge), velocimetry, and flow cytometry to determine whether each species consumes DOC and produces particulate organic carbon (POC) in the form of cellular detritus. Then, for species that consume DOC, the same techniques will be used in manipulative experiments that augment the amount of DOC from three categories (labile, semi-labile and refractory) to determine the types of DOC consumed by sponges. In addition to testing the sponge-loop hypothesis, this project will use molecular techniques to investigate the differences among HMA and LMA sponge species, targeting the microbial symbionts that may be responsible for DOC uptake.”

 

[PotatoPig]

Yes, that would make an excellent zooplanktongenerator.

Do not overlook the benefit of cryptic sponges for processing DOC 20 fold more effective than granular activated carbon.

Hi! Can I ask a follow up to this. I’m currently culturing pods with a relatively new tank — approx 4 months old, but with very low bio load (75g + sump - 2 clowns and 2 Anthias) and trying to get them established in the tank but despite adding them daily never see any (mostly Tigger pods). Thought there might be something in the tank water that was maybe doing them in, but tried using tank water to set up a culture and they did great in it, so now have a use for some of my water change waste…

Does this setup (cryptic fuge) need aquarium lights *somewhere* in the aquarium? I’m running a FOWLR, so am relying on just room lighting and so have little/no algae or visible vegetation. The rocks look just the same as when I put them in. I started from seeded dry rock so currently probably have few/no sponges and so on.

MAIN QUESTION:

To get this type of set up do í basically need to go get a bunch of actual live rock rubble from the LFS covered in algae/etc, dump it in the fuge, and maybe pull the filter sock for a bit to get some nutrients to it?

Would it hurt to add a sump light also?