Refugiums: Are they worth the extra time, money & work?

[Paulie069]

The information I mean face in this thread extremely helpful to a reef virgin such as myself this is what our website is all about the people with experience and knowledge passing on information because they have done been there and done that You all rock R2R

Stupid voice app always screws up,, I swear I’m not challenged

 

[Mkus]

In my opinion it really depends more on your system and livestock than anything.

I’ve been in the hobby a good 15 years. When I had SPS trying to eliminate all nutrients back in the day, I never had much success growing cheato in a sump.

Now I’m doing softies, over feeding my tank feeding coral, and my cheato grows wild full of copepods and amphipods. After a year of this, I’m not having any problems with byropsis or cyno. I wouldn’t feed corals or tank heavily without cheato to absorb excess nutrients.

Same here mines crazy full of pods no algae growing the the display at all.

 

[Twitchy]

Mine mostly grows a lot of GHA, but it still does it's job of keeping nutrients down, and algae out of the tank. It is also home to random junk that I don't know where else to put... A few odd rocks, that annoying fish bully. the clown that fell down the overflow, ETC

 

[SantaMonica]

First time reading "reef virgin".

 

[DxMarinefish]

I have found that allowing for the GHA to grow in my sump is better for my system with pod life especially. I noticed that most pods live in and around the GHA. so i allowed the GHA to grow and that has shrunk the Chaeto but allowed the Ulva to grow.

I do run an ATS as well but I don't skim and i still feed 10 times a day!!

For fertiliser i use TNC Lite which has all the nutrients algae need without the phosphates and nitrates.

 

[Chrille26]

Im just starting out with some Chaeto in my fuge and I noticed that my growlight cover most of my sump. Is there any benefits or issues of keeping a couple of Trochus snails in there to help keep the glass clean? Anyone with experience of cuc in the refugium?
Thanks!

 

[jreece11]

I use a refugium and it works too well. I have a hard time detecting no3 and po4. I think for me the biggest success has been proper lighting. Once I got a grow led I had an explosion on cheato. I also had a GHA issue. I used fluconazole and cleared that up. I like how natural and easy it is to maintain. I have tried ATS but because of the limited space I have it was just a pain. I tried so hard to get it dialed in.

What “grow lights” are working best for fuges these days? I need to swap mine out.

 

[DxMarinefish]

What “grow lights” are working best for fuges these days? I need to swap mine out.

I use Kessil H380 and it is just amazing.

got it secondhand otherwise it’s expensive but worth it for me.

I tried several Chinese knockoffs and each failed after a few months.

the kessil has been rock steady for me.

 

[mkannan]

I tried running refugium light at night and it definitely stabilised the pH swing.

 

[Nhjmc]

I got tired of growing nothing but GHA, so I took mine out. I will install a algae scrubber though.

same here

 

[DancingWind]

What “grow lights” are working best for fuges these days? I need to swap mine out.

Well Kessil will allways do the job - if you have the money.
Tunze EcoChic led bars are great if you want submerged lighting (cut downs on light spill i run 3)
Finally get a chinese waterproof LED grow light - worked great for me (switched to tunze to save spaceand cut down on light spill). Just get water resistant versions
or you can make your own - grow light strip with water restant coating + a coupel of aluminium bars cut to your prefered size + led driver (meanwell recomneded). Is it water proof? no, but is everything above except for tunze. If you find some affordable acrylic tubes (ask around your local acrylic workshop for scrap) you can even make a submersible light tower aka chaeto reactor style.

 

[jmichaelh7]

What “grow lights” are working best for fuges these days? I need to swap mine out.

Kessil

 

[Daniel@R2R]

I like refugiums