Why is a refugium necessary with corals?

[fishdaddy911]

But for me, I can’t see myself getting rid of the media tower and skimmer anytime soon. I’ve gone a bit high tech and my skimmer is also set up with a CO2 scrubber, which DOES have a very measurable and positive effect to my pH.

My ph and kh has been on the low side since I started, and I dont know if its something I need to be concerned about. Tested yesterday they were 6.9 dkh and 7.8 ph. I have a small skimmer that came with the tank that I tried but it took up a lot of space, was very loud, and seemed to lower my salinity somehow so I took it out.
I read that extra aeration helps with raising ph so I put it in yesterday without the collection cup and attached the airline to the window for the extra bubbles.

I like your idea of growing hair algae in a refugium, if I can encourage growth in there and not in the main section where it can choke my coral I would be happy.

 

[HotManwich]

I just have a back chamber of my 14AIO filled with chaeto and a grow light on it. Thats essentially the most basic refugium you can make. For me, its been really easy maintenance of just removing excess growth and rinsing the chaeto in the sink sometimes to remove any buildup on it.

I run softies only in the tank and feed pretty heavily, so the corals still get some nitrate and the chaeto sops up anything getting too high. And since its softies, anything they pull from the water is usually added back in their food.

I just mostly use it for nutrient export, versus super regular water changes. I change the water maybe once a month, but the chaeto has been nice to keep things from creeping too high. I take the idea from walstad tanks from when I was freshwater, where nutrient export was done through the plants when you trim them. It's worked so far, at least.

I just want the lowest maintenance tank possible, and for me and my depression, water changes feel like sisyphus and the boulder. Id much rather pluck out some macroalgae every week and toss it in the bin than do a water change, make a mess, have to wipe things down, make sure salinity and temperature matches, have the tank get messy, so on and so forth. Water changes are the bane of my existence.

 

[Gene the Reefer]

As many others have already pointed out, a refugium isn't absolutely necessary. I'll add a different perspective...I love the look of macro algae in the main display, even though it's not super popular. It's a cheap and easy way to add color and movement while helping stabilize N and P, especially in a smaller tank.

 

[daikaijureefer]

But for me, I can’t see myself getting rid of the media tower and skimmer anytime soon. I’ve gone a bit high tech and my skimmer is also set up with a CO2 scrubber, which DOES have a very measurable and positive effect to my pH.

My ph and kh has been on the low side since I started, and I dont know if its something I need to be concerned about. Tested yesterday they were 6.9 dkh and 7.8 ph. I have a small skimmer that came with the tank that I tried but it took up a lot of space, was very loud, and seemed to lower my salinity somehow so I took it out.
I read that extra aeration helps with raising ph so I put it in yesterday without the collection cup and attached the airline to the window for the extra bubbles.

I like your idea of growing hair algae in a refugium, if I can encourage growth in there and not in the main section where it can choke my coral I would be happy.

I got my tank second hand and it didn’t have the skimmer but I’ve heard the original skimmer is very loud. The one I use is the Tunze 9001 mod from intank and it’s dead quiet.

So there’s a few things to unpack here, and I’m not sure what experience you have so far and I wanna try and help as best as I can.

The only way I can think of a skimmer affecting salinity is if you are skimming wet and replacing with fresh RODI via your top off method.

If you aren’t keeping track of your water level and keeping it within an inch or so difference in your sump by topping off with fresh RODI water, then start doing that now. Our tanks don’t evaporate much with the lids on, which is pretty cool. But you still need to keep up with evaporation and make sure it doesn’t deviate much. I think the entire back holds close to 4-5 gallons of water. It’s hard to imagine, because it’s such close quarters, but if you notice your water level changing much, it could be a lot more than you think!

Your dkh is a bit low. I wouldn’t go crazy chasing a number but if you can get it to 7.7-10 dkh that would be best. Make sure your salinity is in order first. Go slowly with everything (I literally have to remind myself of this daily). Smaller tank volumes are less forgiving than larger ones. I think the 32 gallon is in a sweet spot though and it’s very manageable if you take just a bit of care.

7.8 pH isn’t terrible. It really depends on what time of day it’s measured. Is that at the end of the day when photosynthesis is in full effect? If so, then your ph may be getting too low when your tank is in the lowest part of the cycle, in the morning before the lights are on. If 7.8 is the lowest it tests in the morning and it gets higher towards the end of the day, then you’re probably in an ok range.

I don’t know your plan for corals, but I would be more concentrated on coral health than worry about algae out competing them. If the conditions are great for your corals, it’s going to give them a MUCH better chance to outcompete algae. If it were me, I would stop worrying about algae. A good CUC and managing feeding will easily take care of that. Manage nutrient import/ export.

Once your tank parameters are in a good spot for corals, add them! They will consume some of those nutrients as well.

I hope this helps. I love my biocube 32, btw! It’s a beautiful small tank.

 

[fishdaddy911]

don’t know your plan for corals, but I would be more concentrated on coral health than worry about algae out competing them. If the conditions are great for your corals, it’s going to give them a MUCH better chance to outcompete algae. If it were me, I would stop worrying about algae. A good CUC and managing feeding will easily take care of that.

The big problem is that I already have corals, and algae has started to grow on the skeletons. One candy cane in particular got damaged during transport months ago and the skeleton at the crown was pushed through the flesh. Its now pretty loaded with hair algae and has notable tissue recession from it. I have done hydrogen peroxide dips a few times to clean it but the algae always comes back. Im worried about loosing it.

I have been having to add ammonium bicarbonate daily to keep the corals happy.

 

[fishdaddy911]

I have a large scale gha problem that I fear will become worse. A lot of the rock has small hairs sprouting. Yesterday I was able to pluck out the larger patches to hopefully let my cleanup work on it, but the tuxedo urchin I got and astrea snails are not being reliable and inevitably end up on the glass. Algae is also growing on grains of sand! The biggest fear is that it is now growing on the skeletons of the few corals I have. A candy cane is already showing significant tissue reduction from it. I have tried hydrogen peroxide dip techniques I found on other threads but it does not kill the algae on the affected coral.

Tank is a Biocube 32. Finished cycling around late September. Phosphate is .15 ppm
Nitrate is 6 ppm
SG is 1.025
I am able to test for most other parameters if needed, I just don't know what else is applicable to gha right now.

Light cycle has been:
Daylight from 2 pm to 11 pm.
Sunrise/sunset from 11 am to 11.30 pm.
Moonlight from 12 pm to 1 am.

Stocking is about 6 hermit crabs, about 6 astrea snails, 6 nassarius snails, 6 bumblebee snails, a cleaner shrimp, a tuxedo urchin, a mandarin goby. Corals are 2 hammer, 2 candycane, 1 duncan, yellow polyp colony, zoa colony, 1 montiporia that I was told was a chalice, and what I think is an acan.

I am being careful regarding disease introduction, so I waited to get a copper qt set up for fish before adding them.
Have a starry blenny and 2 banggai cardinals in a separate qt. Am dosing Ammonium bicarbonate daily to keep nitrates at level for corals.

So, reflecting on my recent actions and how they might have led to this point, I think getting the mandarin goby was the catalyst. I got him from a reputable fish store and was told by the owner that the fish was there for a month and was trained to eat frozen foods. The goby was a healthy weight, so I thought I was lucky in finding one trained to eat frozen, and having a diverse copepod population in my aquarium to supplement, I figured I should be good. This was three weeks ago. Now I have no observable copepods! I definitely underestimated how much they eat.
Initially, he WAS eating frozen mysis, but soon ignored it and focused on stuff in the rocks. I was concerned by this and fed various frozen foods heavily each day to see if he would eat, but his focus seemed to be just on copepods now. I have given up the frozen foods, and am now feeding daily with hatched brine shrimp.

This is the first thread I made about it…

 

[daikaijureefer]

I have a large scale gha problem that I fear will become worse. A lot of the rock has small hairs sprouting. Yesterday I was able to pluck out the larger patches to hopefully let my cleanup work on it, but the tuxedo urchin I got and astrea snails are not being reliable and inevitably end up on the glass. Algae is also growing on grains of sand! The biggest fear is that it is now growing on the skeletons of the few corals I have. A candy cane is already showing significant tissue reduction from it. I have tried hydrogen peroxide dip techniques I found on other threads but it does not kill the algae on the affected coral.

Tank is a Biocube 32. Finished cycling around late September. Phosphate is .15 ppm
Nitrate is 6 ppm
SG is 1.025
I am able to test for most other parameters if needed, I just don't know what else is applicable to gha right now.

Light cycle has been:
Daylight from 2 pm to 11 pm.
Sunrise/sunset from 11 am to 11.30 pm.
Moonlight from 12 pm to 1 am.

Stocking is about 6 hermit crabs, about 6 astrea snails, 6 nassarius snails, 6 bumblebee snails, a cleaner shrimp, a tuxedo urchin, a mandarin goby. Corals are 2 hammer, 2 candycane, 1 duncan, yellow polyp colony, zoa colony, 1 montiporia that I was told was a chalice, and what I think is an acan.

I am being careful regarding disease introduction, so I waited to get a copper qt set up for fish before adding them.
Have a starry blenny and 2 banggai cardinals in a separate qt. Am dosing Ammonium bicarbonate daily to keep nitrates at level for corals.

So, reflecting on my recent actions and how they might have led to this point, I think getting the mandarin goby was the catalyst. I got him from a reputable fish store and was told by the owner that the fish was there for a month and was trained to eat frozen foods. The goby was a healthy weight, so I thought I was lucky in finding one trained to eat frozen, and having a diverse copepod population in my aquarium to supplement, I figured I should be good. This was three weeks ago. Now I have no observable copepods! I definitely underestimated how much they eat.
Initially, he WAS eating frozen mysis, but soon ignored it and focused on stuff in the rocks. I was concerned by this and fed various frozen foods heavily each day to see if he would eat, but his focus seemed to be just on copepods now. I have given up the frozen foods, and am now feeding daily with hatched brine shrimp.

This is the first thread I made about it…

Ok, so two things: I hate to tell you this, but the mandarin is not going to survive in your tank unless you are adding large amounts of copepods at least twice a month if not more. I’ll put it this way: I would love to keep a target mandarin, which are on the smaller side of mandarins. I have about 60 lbs of live rock and I’ve added multiple pod mixes to my tank. While I do have a pretty healthy pod population right now, I’m certain a mandarin would wipe it out and frankly, I wouldn’t keep one in mine unless I was prepared to constantly restock pods and even then I’m not sure that would grant long term success. If you can afford it and don’t mind adding lots of pods, they can help in your algae control but this is a whole other topic.

To get back to your corals health, I would put my focus on getting your alk up to an acceptable range and make sure your ph is staying in an acceptable range for your corals. This could be why you’re seeing your corals detach from their skeleton. That’s exactly what happens when we talk about ocean acidification and coral bleaching in the wild! With low alk and ph you’re riding a razors edge of acceptable limits if not below that which your corals need to survive.

To help with your focus on algae, let me share something anecdotal. I was growing GHA like crazy, and honestly wasn’t too worried about it because I would rather grow GHA in my display than have a host of other issues like cyano, or Dino’s. Anyway, I have a fish (that will remain nameless because I don’t want other people in the hobby to jump on this as a solution for GHA, because it’s not), but I have a fish that was only eating GHA no matter what other food I offered it. It ate all my GHA. It definitely had help with some CUC but I could see this fish wipe out patches of GHA every day until there was none. Since I couldn’t get it to eat anything else, I just kept dumping food in to purposefully fuel GHA growth so this fish would have something to eat. Just a week ago, I finally found a pellet that this fish LOVES and it has put on some substantial weight now that it’s not eating only GHA.

So now that I can feed food that actually gets eaten, I’ve cut WAAAY back on feeding and I’m getting my nutrients under control.

During the time I was purposefully fueling algae growth, I have had all of my sps corals exhibit new growth, with GHA touching the frags at times or growing right next to it. The corals are healthy and my CUC and fish just eat the algae off. I do think some of my corals were stressed due to overfeeding and high nutrient levels, but at no time have I lost tissue on a coral, and especially not to algae growth, in fact I’ve seen the opposite as I watch my corals grow over places that were once covered in GHA.

What I have made sure of is that my alk, magnesium and calcium are at acceptable and stable levels, and especially pH.

These are my rocks right now with almost no algae


Vs 2 months ago:



So what I’m saying is try not to sweat the algae and focus on coral health. I can post some before/ after coral growth photos if you want.

 

[fishdaddy911]

Ok, so two things: I hate to tell you this, but the mandarin is not going to survive in your tank unless you are adding large amounts of copepods at least twice a month if not more. I’ll put it this way: I would love to keep a target mandarin, which are on the smaller side of mandarins. I have about 60 lbs of live rock and I’ve added multiple pod mixes to my tank. While I do have a pretty healthy pod population right now, I’m certain a mandarin would wipe it out and frankly, I wouldn’t keep one in mine unless I was prepared to constantly restock pods and even then I’m not sure that would grant long term success. If you can afford it and don’t mind adding lots of pods, they can help in your algae control but this is a whole other topic.

To get back to your corals health, I would put my focus on getting your alk up to an acceptable range and make sure your ph is staying in an acceptable range for your corals. This could be why you’re seeing your corals detach from their skeleton. That’s exactly what happens when we talk about ocean acidification and coral bleaching in the wild! With low alk and ph you’re riding a razors edge of acceptable limits if not below that which your corals need to survive.

To help with your focus on algae, let me share something anecdotal. I was growing GHA like crazy, and honestly wasn’t too worried about it because I would rather grow GHA in my display than have a host of other issues like cyano, or Dino’s. Anyway, I have a fish (that will remain nameless because I don’t want other people in the hobby to jump on this as a solution for GHA, because it’s not), but I have a fish that was only eating GHA no matter what other food I offered it. It ate all my GHA. It definitely had help with some CUC but I could see this fish wipe out patches of GHA every day until there was none. Since I couldn’t get it to eat anything else, I just kept dumping food in to purposefully fuel GHA growth so this fish would have something to eat. Just a week ago, I finally found a pellet that this fish LOVES and it has put on some substantial weight now that it’s not eating only GHA.

So now that I can feed food that actually gets eaten, I’ve cut WAAAY back on feeding and I’m getting my nutrients under control.

During the time I was purposefully fueling algae growth, I have had all of my sps corals exhibit new growth, with GHA touching the frags at times or growing right next to it. The corals are healthy and my CUC and fish just eat the algae off. I do think some of my corals were stressed due to overfeeding and high nutrient levels, but at no time have I lost tissue on a coral, and especially not to algae growth, in fact I’ve seen the opposite as I watch my corals grow over places that were once covered in GHA.

What I have made sure of is that my alk, magnesium and calcium are at acceptable and stable levels, and especially pH.

These are my rocks right now with almost no algae


Vs 2 months ago:



So what I’m saying is try not to sweat the algae and focus on coral health. I can post some before/ after coral growth photos if you want.

I agree with you on mandarin 100%. I had lots of copepods, osticods, scuds ect before adding him, but he wiped them out. My local pet stores have not gotten new live copepods because of cold weather, so I haven't been able to start a refugium yet. He is greedily eating baby brine shrimp so I am hatching those now each day. I took a risk with getting him and learned a lesson. I want to follow through now and am determined to keep him healthy and well fed. It would be nice to find someone local with pods I could start with.

I am quite sure the algae growth is the cause of my corals tissue receding. I have a second candy cane who's skeleton is undamaged that is a lot bigger and quite healthy looking. My other corals also look good. If caused by a kh/ph problem wouldn't they all be affected? Im not disagreeing with you that my kh/ph isn't optimal though. I have no idea how to fix that however! Keep doing regular water changes to replenish the low parameters? That will mess with my nutrient balance and probably cause dinos.

Regarding your secret fish eating algae, I do have a starry blenny in a quarantine tank being treated for ich. He wont be ready for probably another 2 weeks.

 

[daikaijureefer]

That’s awesome that you’re so dedicated to your mandarin! That’s how I feel about my GHA eating fish. I was literally feeding the GHA to keep the fish alive until she finally found a pellet she liked. I am so glad she likes these pellets so I don’t have to provide food for algae growth anymore lol. I don’t want to say her species because I don’t want to promote this fish as a miracle cure for GHA. It was weird that my fish only wanted to eat GHA until these pellets.

I’m really lucky that my LFS stocks locally farmed copepods. But when I haven’t bought locally, I’ve found several online sources that are really great, and my copepod shipments from them have arrived in great health.

You may just have a coral that wasn’t in good health and algae is enough to irritate its tissue and send it past the edge of “okay”. But I can tell you that’s not normal for corals. unless it’s some aggressive form of algae that is literally smothering the corals out of space and light, then algae alone would not be the cause of coral to recede. When you see algae growing on the coral skeleton, that is the algae taking over a place that has nothing competing with it. Meaning, it’s most likely the coral receded first and the algae was the first thing to take its place.

Keeping corals, if I’m using a good salt mix and there were only two parameters I can measure and keep in line, alkalinity and ph would be at the top of that list.

So that’s where I’d look before I got into adding a refugium for your corals.

 

[daikaijureefer]

That’s awesome that you’re so dedicated to your mandarin! That’s how I feel about my GHA eating fish. I was literally feeding the GHA to keep the fish alive until she finally found a pellet she liked. I am so glad she likes these pellets so I don’t have to provide food for algae growth anymore lol. I don’t want to say her species because I don’t want to promote this fish as a miracle cure for GHA. It was weird that my fish only wanted to eat GHA until these pellets.

I’m really lucky that my LFS stocks locally farmed copepods. But when I haven’t bought locally, I’ve found several online sources that are really great, and my copepod shipments from them have arrived in great health.

You may just have a coral that wasn’t in good health and algae is enough to irritate its tissue and send it past the edge of “okay”. But I can tell you that’s not normal for corals. unless it’s some aggressive form of algae that is literally smothering the corals out of space and light, then algae alone would not be the cause of coral to recede. When you see algae growing on the coral skeleton, that is the algae taking over a place that has nothing competing with it. Meaning, it’s most likely the coral receded first and the algae was the first thing to take its place.

Keeping corals, if I’m using a good salt mix and there were only two parameters I can measure and keep in line, alkalinity and ph would be at the top of that list.

So that’s where I’d look before I got into adding a refugium for your corals.

Just a few corals that have not only survived but are thriving after my push for more GHA.

 

[twentyleagues]

I agree with you on mandarin 100%. I had lots of copepods, osticods, scuds ect before adding him, but he wiped them out. My local pet stores have not gotten new live copepods because of cold weather, so I haven't been able to start a refugium yet. He is greedily eating baby brine shrimp so I am hatching those now each day. I took a risk with getting him and learned a lesson. I want to follow through now and am determined to keep him healthy and well fed. It would be nice to find someone local with pods I could start with.

I am quite sure the algae growth is the cause of my corals tissue receding. I have a second candy cane who's skeleton is undamaged that is a lot bigger and quite healthy looking. My other corals also look good. If caused by a kh/ph problem wouldn't they all be affected? Im not disagreeing with you that my kh/ph isn't optimal though. I have no idea how to fix that however! Keep doing regular water changes to replenish the low parameters? That will mess with my nutrient balance and probably cause dinos.

Regarding your secret fish eating algae, I do have a starry blenny in a quarantine tank being treated for ich. He wont be ready for probably another 2 weeks.

KH is simple to adjust. You need to decide on a dosing regimen, All for reef is a very simple complete dosing system, there are various 2 and 3 part dosing systems as well. You need to add alk, calc, and mag to your tank in a controlled way once you have corals, Water changes work sometimes but its not usually enough with any real amount of hard corals. Years ago when I had a large tank I used a calcium reactor, kalkwasser and water changes to control my major 3 and trace. When I got back into reefing I wanted a simple way to handle this but was undecided on what that would be. I started back with a 30g tank and thought water changes would suffice for a while and it did for about the first 6 months, then started having issues keeping my alk above 7. I got all for reef and some 2 part from BRS, got my alk and calcium to a level I was comfortable at with the 2 part and started all for reef and really have not looked back since. I have not really ever chased ph nor do I intend to. Ph will be in an ok range if you keep alk in a good range and have proper gas exchange unless of course you have really high co2 content in your air. You can do things to help ph but honestly unless its chronically low below 7.8 you really dont need to. If you keep alk, calcium and mag in a preferred range and have calcium carbonate based sand and rocks in your tank there will be a natural buffer zone to keep ph from going too low.

You'll find fish are like electricity they will take the easiest path. So even though they are an algae grazer if you feed enough to keep them satiated then they will do that instead of grazing. The trick is to feed them enough to keep them healthy but hungry enough to still want to graze the rocks. They also learn from you so if you feed nori on a clip at the glass they will go there to get an easy meal/snack instead of eating the algae on the rocks, its easier and tastier. I know these things and I have still turned my tang into a lazy fish because I was lazy and fed him nori from a clip on the glass instead of strapped to a rock stuck in a hole on the reef. He was a great grazer for over a year then I broke him because there was little algae for him to eat and I started using a feeding clip on the glass. Snails and urchins are not as smart as fish usually so as long as the algae is edible to them they will eat it and typically if you have enough of them they can keep algae growth in check.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I had a 20g setup and never once had a fuge, nor did I even consider setting one up.

 

[Reginald Reefer III]

I have a fuge with a bunch of real live rock, chaeto and a UV reactor. I look at it more as something that is going to provide a safe haven for microfauna to grow and slowly be introduced back into the main display than a true nutrient control mechanism.

One thing to note with chaeto if you are going to use it for nutrient control, it will also suck up a TON of trace and you will need to supplement that with things like Iron, Manganese, Cobalt, Molybdenum, Iodine, and Boron. If you don't have those readily available in the water column, the chaeto won't do much of anything and slowly wither away. If you dose trace, the chaeto grows extremely fast and you will be throwing large portions of it away every couple of weeks.

 

[fishdaddy911]

Keeping corals, if I’m using a good salt mix and there were only two parameters I can measure and keep in line, alkalinity and ph would be at the top of that list.

What is a “good salt mix” ?
Im using instant ocean reef crystals

 

[TheNative192]

What is a “good salt mix” ?
Im using instant ocean reef crystals

I used Instant ocean but their Alk just seems a bit high. I have heard much better reviews from Tropic Marin & Aqua forest salts. Also red sea blue bucket but it all depends on your current corals intake of elements.

I will say adding a refuge seems to be a must if you have a Mandarin even if its small as it adds a ton of sustainable pods so not only does it save you money (have to buy less pods or make less baby brine) but it also helps with PH & Nutrient balance. Also if you are looking for a Mandarin in the future get a Biota one since they readily accept small foods like TDO B2 pellets, frozen baby brine, etc. It costs more initially but again the amount you will save compared to buying pods every week is worth it.

I have a Hydros probe that monitors my PH and since I added my In tank Fuge in my Innovative Marine 25 my Ph bounces from 8 to 8.2 previously it would go from 7.6 to 7.7 to 8.1 or 8.2 which there are lots of studies about how low PH makes fish not want to eat & corals do not grow as well. Also such a large change can cause other issues as well. It also allows me to "over feed" which I have a tendency to do keeping the tank a lot more stable as it absorbs nutrients.

If cost is a concern a lot of people use this grow lite as a fuge light and its a powerhouse! It's $25.99 and all you need is either a $5 timer plug. Amazon product

Also you can do a aqueon filter DIY hang on back refugium which many have had success with making it easy to add to any tank. Of course there are multiple options for just a standard hang on back refugium as well.

Based on your situation I would just highly recommend a fuge & I honestly would try & culture tisbe pods & phyto as well. It is relatively easy to set up and well worth it to feed the mandarin. I also use RG complete instead of phyto to feed my cultures which is an absolute powerhouse feeder in case you wanted something to feed pods. It lasts for 6-months and my cultures exploded after using it. It also includes a PH buffer and ammonia buffer to not crash the cultures too.

 

[Subsea]

As many others have already pointed out, a refugium isn't absolutely necessary. I'll add a different perspective...I love the look of macro algae in the main display, even though it's not super popular. It's a cheap and easy way to add color and movement while helping stabilize N and P, especially in a smaller tank.

I also like ornamental macro algae in display. Fish graze on its surface biofilm which is a banquet of micro fauna.

OP
A refugium is a refuge from predators. It does not have to be lighted. After 20 years with a mud/macro algae refugium, I turned out the lights and added live rock. Pods & worms in the mud contribute to the microbial loop. However, my focus was cryptic sponges to deal with dissolved organic carbon. If there is a compartment in your AIO, then add reef rubble.

After 55 years in the hobby, I operate sumpless & skimmerless.

 

[slingfox]

I have a sump but I primarily use it to hold equipment. I used to run a lighted refugium but I only grew hair algae and therefor added another thing to maintenance. I switched to a cryptic refugium and the tank had no issues stabilizing.

 

[Subsea]

I have a sump but I primarily use it to hold equipment. I used to run a lighted refugium but I only grew hair algae and therefor added another thing to maintenance. I switched to a cryptic refugium and the tank had no issues stabilizing.

Aside from turning out the lights, what else, if anything, did you do to make a cryptic refugium?

How long ago?

 

[Subsea]

I just have a back chamber of my 14AIO filled with chaeto and a grow light on it. Thats essentially the most basic refugium you can make. For me, its been really easy maintenance of just removing excess growth and rinsing the chaeto in the sink sometimes to remove any buildup on it.

I run softies only in the tank and feed pretty heavily, so the corals still get some nitrate and the chaeto sops up anything getting too high. And since its softies, anything they pull from the water is usually added back in their food.

I just mostly use it for nutrient export, versus super regular water changes. I change the water maybe once a month, but the chaeto has been nice to keep things from creeping too high. I take the idea from walstad tanks from when I was freshwater, where nutrient export was done through the plants when you trim them. It's worked so far, at least.

I just want the lowest maintenance tank possible, and for me and my depression, water changes feel like sisyphus and the boulder. Id much rather pluck out some macroalgae every week and toss it in the bin than do a water change, make a mess, have to wipe things down, make sure salinity and temperature matches, have the tank get messy, so on and so forth. Water changes are the bane of my existence.

“ just want the lowest maintenance tank possible, and for me and my depression, water changes feel like sisyphus and the boulder. Id much rather pluck out some macroalgae every week and toss it in the bin than do a water change, make a mess, have to wipe things down, make sure salinity and temperature matches, have the tank get messy, so on and so forth. Water changes are the bane of my existence.”

Very pragmatic and my sentiments exactly. I recently started growing ornamental seaweed in my display tanks that don’t have tangs.

Very funny “water changes feel like Sisyphus and the boulder”.

With respect to water changes or seaweed prune & export, I make a mess either way.

 

[ChrisfromBrick]

it’s not at all required