Is a small refugium better than no refugium?

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JSully_94

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Pics would help. Phosphate and nitrates being low doesnt mean anything if you have GHA taking it all up quickly.

Carbon dosing is quite easy but you will need a good skimmer and do it slow and consistently. A doser would really help. I recommend kamoer bluetooth doser, single head. You can use Nopox or other sources like vinegar, vodka. Time to do some research!

It's kind of hard to see, but this whole rock is covered with GHA. I've actually been looking into the kamoer doser!

IMG_0441.jpg
 
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Do you have a reason to run the refugium? What are you looking to achieve that you cannot without the refugium? at 20G, I almost wonder if it's easier to just upgrade the tank than to add a refugium and makes things more complicated?

The only reason I'd be running the refugium is to fight GHA. I guess there are better options/methods out there...
 

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how would refugium do more harm than good?
Refugiums have a tendency to be poorly maintained - low flow - crud settling etc. I could see a small refugium that's not properly kept clean doing more bad than good. But there's an obvious solution to that....



I've got a chaeto reactor on my Nuvo40 - was way easier to implement considering the limited space. I had some issues a couple weeks in because I didn't realize the pump had a sponge prefilter - and it had clogged. This caused low flow, crud collection, and my phosphates went from about .04 (with it running properly) to .30 in a week. So - more bad than good.

Cleaned it up and I'm back down around .04.

I run barebottom with a lot of fish - so my tank tends to be sparce on the microfauna - the reactor gives them a good place to reproduce.
 
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Yup, thats a lot of algae. Manual removal is your best bet to start with - during a water change.

I'm using phosguard and chemi-pure elite in my tank, is there something I'm missing? It just seems to grow back as soon as I remove it? I've even resorted to removing some of the live rock and spraying it with a peroxide solution, scrubbing the algae off with a wire brush, rinsing the rock, and then returning it to the tank a few times.
 

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The purpose of a fuge is excess nutrient export

I run my 45 pretty bare bones, no skimmer, no fuge, no nutrient export beyond manual remove through filtration when I clean.

I'm having a battle with some cyano patches in my sand bed still, but I think i'll be able to combat it on my own.

Adding a fuge, or a skimmer would help me, but I chose not to.

So if you want excess nutrient export, then running a small one is better than none yes.
 
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Refugiums have a tendency to be poorly maintained - low flow - crud settling etc. I could see a small refugium that's not properly kept clean doing more bad than good. But there's an obvious solution to that....



I've got a chaeto reactor on my Nuvo40 - was way easier to implement considering the limited space. I had some issues a couple weeks in because I didn't realize the pump had a sponge prefilter - and it had clogged. This caused low flow, crud collection, and my phosphates went from about .04 (with it running properly) to .30 in a week. So - more bad than good.

Cleaned it up and I'm back down around .04.

I run barebottom with a lot of fish - so my tank tends to be sparce on the microfauna - the reactor gives them a good place to reproduce.

What chaeto reactor are you using?
 
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Why not try a macro algae reactor? I love my Tunze macro reactor, grow cheato like crazy.
Yeah! The Reef Octopus Macroalgae Light Reactor is specifically for cheato! I was contemplating either that or a small refugium, but now after reading some of the posts in this thread it seems like it could potentially do more harm than good.
 

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What chaeto reactor are you using?
Its a DIY - basically an Aquamaxx HOB biopellet reactor with led strip lights wrapped around each it. Super hacky - but works.

Is this a newish tank?


If you're not finding that GFO/etc are having any effect - it may be that water quality isn't really the issue. Aragonite essentially acts as a phosphate buffer. If you've got high phosphate in the water column, it absorbs a lot.

When you've got low phosphate in the water column, and low quality rock (like dry rock, or live rock that has spent a lot of time in a high phosphate environment) - it'll start releasing some of that phosphate - and often that ends up in the sort of situation where you have low phosphate in the water column, but high phosphate at the rock surface - and that gives algae a huge competitive advantage.

And there's not a ton you can do about that other than what you're already doing - export as much algal biomass as you can, keep the water clean, and eventually it'll equalize - and corals/coraline/etc will win.


The tough thing with GHA is that once it gets to a certain length - it starts catching detritus - and starts creating its own food.
 
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Its a DIY - basically an Aquamaxx HOB biopellet reactor with led strip lights wrapped around each it. Super hacky - but works.

Is this a newish tank?


If you're not finding that GFO/etc are having any effect - it may be that water quality isn't really the issue. Aragonite essentially acts as a phosphate buffer. If you've got high phosphate in the water column, it absorbs a lot.

When you've got low phosphate in the water column, and low quality rock (like dry rock, or live rock that has spent a lot of time in a high phosphate environment) - it'll start releasing some of that phosphate - and often that ends up in the sort of situation where you have low phosphate in the water column, but high phosphate at the rock surface - and that gives algae a huge competitive advantage.

And there's not a ton you can do about that other than what you're already doing - export as much algal biomass as you can, keep the water clean, and eventually it'll equalize - and corals/coraline/etc will win.


The tough thing with GHA is that once it gets to a certain length - it starts catching detritus - and starts creating its own food.

Sounds like a solid solution though!

I started my tank in January, so it's definitely still new. The rock itself was a dry rock. I believe it's Haitian rock? I'm not entirely certain of that... I bought it from an LFS.

The water I use to mix my salt with is 0 TDS. I use an HM Digital TDS-3 meter to check the distilled water I buy each time before mixing so I don't think its an issue with water quality.

I guess that leaves me with phosphate infested rock...
 

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What I would do is pull as much algae out during WC, maybe increase flow to stir up detritus. Do you have a skimmer? If so run it wet for a while. Invest in a few trochus snails. Use some type of chaeto growing system. In my 29 when I had lots of GHA and high nitrate/phos, I made a small area in my sump for a 9 watt grow bulb and a handful of chaeto, the chaeto does help, just don't buy a huge ball of it from the start.
 
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Hi @JSully_94,

I was reading this thread and I'm curious what you did and the results?

Thanks!

Sorry for the delayed response. I've actually decided to just start dosing Vibrant once weekly and add some more Phosguard to my overall filtration. So far so good. I actually did a heavy scrubbing of all my rockwork and seemingly got rid of most of the hair algae. Now I just need to keep it away. I am having issues with hair algae growing around the base of my birdsnest coral. Does any one have a solution for this?
 

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