Refugium

[kenand]

I want to get a manderian and I'm adding cooepods to my 90-gallon reef tank. Am I in need of a refugium, or am I ok without one?

 

[Kingsley_Reef]

If you have the room for a refugium absolutely it has extra benefits to your tank more then just feeding fish

 

[kenand]

If you have the room for a refugium absolutely it has extra benefits to your tank more then just feeding fish

I don't think I have room. Will I be safe without it?

 

[Kingsley_Reef]

I don't think I have room. Will I be safe without it?

You will have to dose pods regularly

 

[Razorbacks]

I think there is some inconsistency in how people use the word "refugium". I think just having a sump and something for the pods to eat is fine. You don't need to grow macro algae. Regular algae will grow if you have a light in the sump and they can eat that. Without some kind of refuge though your fish will eat all the pods. I'm pretty sure I had zero pods in my nano I just tore down despite spending a bunch of money to dose them early on.

 

[bobnicaragua]

Can we see a full tank shot? You might be okay if you have a lot of rock, sand, and no wrasses or anything that will compete with the manderian. I would put some rock rubble and sand in your sump.

If you want a refugium, you could upgrade your sump. I have a trigger systems triton sump, with a big first chamber refugium. It keeps the nitrates down. Run it at night and it will help keep the PH from dropping.

There is miracle mud and live rock below the cheato. It’s absolutely full of all kinds of pods, asterina stars, brittle stars, etc.
I have always felt my tanks are more stable with a fuge.

 

[reefinSC]

I would go the captive bred route. Mandarins that are captive bred have been trained to eat a mixture of foods and not just copepods.

 

[Liquid361]

Unless your tank has plenty of rock and is well aged with well established and fairly dense pod population, I’d say away, unless it’s a biota mandarin. They are currently in stock at AB by the way.

 

[PotatoPig]

Do you have a sump?