Let’s see your established refugium

[jmichaelh7]

Let’s see pics of your refugium that is thriving! Currently Chaeto is growing by the day and I’m looking into periods to keep it on vs off (10 hours, 12 hours).

I know there are other types of algae besides Chaeto , and I’m trying to get ideas from your established refugium.

 

[WheatToast]

Here is my refugium, which started seeing its first introductions on September 15th of this year:

With refugium light (on for 12 hours daily):

With flashlight:

Inhabitants include:

Algae:
- Sea lettuce (Ulva sp. and Ulva fasciata) (fastest grower)
- Sea grapes (Caulerpa lentillifera)
- Palm tree algae (Caulerpa paspaloides)
- Green fleece algae (Codium decorticatum) (slowest grower)
- Green coralline
- Other hitchhiker brown, green, and red macroalgae

Animals:
- Copepods
- Amphipods
- Isopods
- Live Mysis shrimp
- Bristleworms
- Spaghetti worms
- Spirorbid worms
- Dove snails (prolific breeders)
- Nassarius snails
- Stomatella snails
- Hawaiian periwinkles (love emerging from the water)
- Micro brittle stars
- Pineapple sponges
- Many smaller invertebrates

Substrates:
- 15 pounds of eBay live mud (3-4 inches)

I am also looking into seagrasses

Ulva:

Dove snails:

Dove snail egg case:

Caulerpa lentillifera:

Caulerpa paspaloides:

Mysis shrimp:

 

[Lavey29]

This is mine which has only been going about a month. I'm still trying to find the best approach. Light is on 12 hours and I get decent chaeto growth but also some GHA. I added a few peppermint shrimp and trochus snails for clean up. I am already seeing a variety of micro fauna in there which I'm excited about.

 

[X-37B]

My 2 month old 30g remote fuge.
Cheato, ogo, and dragons breath.
I just took the second one and you can see the chaeto growth, phone pic no macro lens.
I harvest about a softball size amount every week now.
The ogo grows quite fast also.

 

[HeyLookItsCaps]

 

[Lilnoelle80]

My 2 month old 30g remote fuge.
Cheato, ogo, and dragons breath.
I just took the second one and you can see the chaeto growth, phone pic no macro lens.
I harvest about a softball size amount every week now.
The ogo grows quite fast also.

So with a remote fuge, is it hooked into a bigger system/DT? How do you do that? Trying to see if I can expand my current in sump fuge’s size my hooking in a second tank.

 

[X-37B]

My 30g remote fuge has a corner overflow. It drains into my 120's 40 breeder sump. Both drains drain into a 7" filter sock.
The return has 2 ball valves to control the flow into the 120 and the fuge running off one main return pump.
I dont use a filter sock holder. Its held up with the bungee cord in the pick.

 

[jmichaelh7]

Here is my refugium, which started seeing its first introductions on September 15th of this year:

With refugium light (on for 12 hours daily):

With flashlight:

Inhabitants include:

Algae:
- Sea lettuce (Ulva sp. and Ulva fasciata) (fastest grower)
- Sea grapes (Caulerpa lentillifera)
- Palm tree algae (Caulerpa paspaloides)
- Green fleece algae (Codium decorticatum) (slowest grower)
- Green coralline
- Other hitchhiker brown, green, and red macroalgae

Animals:
- Copepods
- Amphipods
- Isopods
- Live Mysis shrimp
- Bristleworms
- Spaghetti worms
- Spirorbid worms
- Dove snails (prolific breeders)
- Nassarius snails
- Stomatella snails
- Hawaiian periwinkles (love emerging from the water)
- Micro brittle stars
- Pineapple sponges
- Many smaller invertebrates

Substrates:
- 15 pounds of eBay live mud (3-4 inches)

I am also looking into seagrasses

Ulva:

Dove snails:

Dove snail egg case:

Caulerpa lentillifera:

Caulerpa paspaloides:

Mysis shrimp:

Did you just pour mud in refugium and call it a day? What is your feeding and maintenance like?

My 2 month old 30g remote fuge.
Cheato, ogo, and dragons breath.
I just took the second one and you can see the chaeto growth, phone pic no macro lens.
I harvest about a softball size amount every week now.
The ogo grows quite fast also.

I like the color where did you buy it?

Where did you buy your plants ?

 

[jmichaelh7]

I hear the lettuce is good to have because it can be fed to the tangs ?

 

[X-37B]

All macro algae was purchased at lfs.

 

[jmichaelh7]

All macro algae was purchased at lfs.

Do you have inverts in your macro algae aquarium

 

[HeyLookItsCaps]

Did you just pour mud in refugium and call it a day? What is your feeding and maintenance like?

I like the color where did you buy it?

Where did you buy your plants ?

Honestly a lot of different sites. WheatToast has a great list and I found most of them by stumbling through Google.

AlgaeBarn
SavageReef
CultivatedReef
PacificEastAquaculture
eBay
MySaltwaterFishStore
RUSalty

To name a few

 

[HeyLookItsCaps]

I hear the lettuce is good to have because it can be fed to the tangs ?

I feed ulva (sea lettuce) from my fuge in all my tanks to the herbivores.

Do you have inverts in your macro algae aquarium

Yes a few nass, a few astrea/trochus, a mantis shrimp hitch hiker, and a crab that couldn’t keep his hands to himself

 

[X-37B]

Do you have inverts in your macro algae aquarium

Only things im my fuge right now are a few hermit crabs, few trochus snails, and a few nassurius snail. Its only 2 months old.

 

[fltt]

Just starting to plan for a refugium in a dedicated spot in my sump. I see you all using substrate, is there added benefit or could I go bare to make it easier to clean ?

 

[scrappy35]

Right now my fuge is an algae factory. I have dragons breath and a tiny piece of sea lettuce in it. Every week I clean the cyano and hair algae out, but it seems to keep most of it out of dt. It’s a work in progress. Today I will be replacing the sump to a new version of a diy 40b sump when I switch the dt out to a larger one. I made a few mods from lessons learned. My cheats died when I was adding vibrant for bubble algae.

 

[Lavey29]

Ok, so I made a cool discovery. I put 4 trochus snails in my fuge to clean the glass and deal with a little GHA. Well one of these snails crawled over to my media socks that was really dirty and needed to be changed. I got up this morning and the dirty filter sock is completely white and looks totally fresh again....who knew? I don't even have to change it now and the snail is still on it.

 

[Jeffcb]

250 Liter 15 months in. Grape caulerpa. N03 next to zero. I wish I had a little more.
Both have Kessel A80 Tuna Blue cranked to slight blue.

900 Liter FOWLR 1 year in. NO3 is 10 dosing 1/3 of the Red Sea recommended NO3 PO4 X. 8 ml daily.
Kessel A80 Tuna Blue.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Nice looking fuges!!

 

[dkfrosty1]

I’ve been kind of winging it and it seems to be doing well.