Best Refugium Clean-up Crew......GO!

D.WhiteShark · Sep 12, 2017

I have a 40gal display Refugium. mostly reds and green macros I would like to put a cleanup crew in just to keep it tidy. but I don't want whatever I get to start mowing down my plants. Does anyone have anything in particular that they like to use? I currently have some Red Grape (Botryocladia sp), Red Tree Gracilaria (Gracilaria sp), Red Spicifera (Acanthophora sp.), Green Lettuce Ulva (Ulva Lactuca) and some Red Dragons Breath (Halymenia sp). I am also looking to pick up a couple types of seagrass in the very near future.

THANKS!

CastAway · Sep 12, 2017

Interesting. Tagging along.

I have all kinds of critters in my refugium. The ones I can see are bristle worms, red planaria, munnid isopods, gammarus amphipods and burrowing worms, none of which I deliberately put there. I've also seeded with tisbe and tigriopus although I don't see them, if they survive at all.

To date I've resisted the urge to add any more conventional CUC, i.e.. snails, cucumbers, crabs, fish etc..

My logic, however flawed, was that a refugium was meant to be a "refuge" from predation for certain macro algae and detrivores.

So for example, any herbivorous snails or crabs would seem to be counter intuitive, as they would essentially release nitrate and phosphate fixed within the algae.

keddre · Sep 12, 2017

I added a turbo snail because the hair algae in my refugium was making it harder to seed my ATS. I also threw in a emerald crab because I was getting bubble algae and didn't want it spreading in my main tank. Other than those two it is all pods, a peanut worm, some dusters, and whatever other hitchhikers may be hiding.

Actually I do have a goby in there but that's because he swam down my drain line and I'm not fighting to get him out...food makes it down there anyway