Well, Chris' presentation on sumps and refugiums has motivated me to setup a viewable refugium next to my 120 gallon display. I still can't believe my wife is letting me do this, heh, heh. The DT currently has a small, approx. 7 gallon refugium under it, from which I harvest chaetomorphia every two weeks. The ball I leave in it pretty much triples or quadruples in size every two weeks. Since it is functioning so well I was planning on just leaving it be. I'll be adding a 26 gallon bowfront tank beside the main tank for the viewable refugium (It's what I have available, I have a stand for it, it's small, and I have limited space). The tank is not drilled, and I don't want to risk drilling it, so I'll be using a box overflow with a vacuum pump drawing from the top of the U-tube to help prevent siphon breaks, as well as a float switch inside the refugium tank to turn off the pump should the overflow plug up or otherwise fail to drain properly. This is about the only way I would feel good about a hang-on box overflow. That's a couple of fail-safes - I can live with that. I'm planning on a 6" sandbed of mixed substrate, mostly oolite type sugar sand, with some "puka shell" and reef sand mixed in. I'll put a bit of live rock/rubble in the tank as well. I'm planning on trying my hand at a few various macro algeas like ulva, ogo (heard it's not easy), and maybe a few others. My questions are mainly concerning what type of critters would be interesting in a small environment like this? I'd really like to keep a jawfish of some type, but the tank may be too small for most jawfish. Maybe a yellow head? I've read they can be kept in small tanks, but I'd hate to cramp the critters. Give me some ideas for what could live peacefully in this small space and make for an interesting display. Of course, input on any part of this idea is appreciated.
At LiveAquaria they say 10 to 30 depending on the fish. IMO it should be fine. http://aquarium-fish.liveaquaria.com/search?w=jawfish
That's similar to what I've read as well, meco65. I'm somewhat hesitant to pull the trigger on jawfish as I would guess the effect of such a burrowing animal in a DSB would somewhat nullify it's denitrating ability. I guess there is a trade-off in that case. What interesting invertibrates could you all suggest that would be beneficial, or just plain cool. I'm thinking along the lines of serpent stars, various shrimps, sea cucumbers, crabs, etc.
I have a hawaiian strawberry crab and I think it is very interesting but he hides alot so you would not see him all the time.
My experience with Jawfish leads me to think they are ok for the refug. Mine found a place it liked, (the pearly jawfish), and built his burrow in one spot and kept it there. I like the pearly or yellowhead as you called it because they tend to burrow out in the open and not under rocks. They inhabit the sand flats and grass beds so they are naturally out in the open. They tend to be jumpers, so consider that. That's how I lost mine. Other critters to consider would be cleaner clams, ornamental shrimp, urchins, and even some of the non-reef safe starfish (since there are no corals) If you like the predatory stuff it would also be a great place for a nice large peacock mantis shrimp or even an eel or two. Just remember 1-Mantis and nothing else !!!
Excellent, guys. I googled the strawberry crab. It was quite attractive for a crab, lol. Too bad crabs aren't more gregarious. Oooh! I totally forgot about urchins. I've always thought they were cool in an odd sort of way. I'm not sure what other inverts they are compatible with. I was about to mention mantis shrimp as a possible option as well, Good call, fisherman12! And while looking up info on the mantis shrimp, I came across this article about how their eyes are so unique in the animal kingdom....cool! http://www.oceanleadership.org/2009/shrimp-eyes-polarize-light-just-like-a-dvd-player-only-better/ I'm not familiar with cleaner clams...I'll look into them, too. The more info I can process before I get locked into anything, the better. I'll be clearing out a space for the tank this weekend, and hopefully by next weekend I'll have it running with rock and sand, ready for my macro algea. I'll build it as "jawfish friendly" as I can just in case. so far I could go with, in no particular order: 1) Crabs, urchins, and maybe starfishes (depending on compatibility,of course) 2) Mantis shrimp, possibly urchins (surely a mantis won't mess with an urchin? I don't know.) 3) Jawfishes, ornamental shrimps, cleaner clams, possibly urchins.
New question. I'm using dry (not live) substrate for the first time. In the past I've only used live sand, which I never had to wash before using. How well do you need to wash this stuff? I put about 10-15 lbs at a time in a bucket of salt water, stirred it around a bunch, then poured out the water and put the sand in the tank. That may not have been enough, because it is cloudy as hell. It settled a bit overnight but left a thick layer on everything, so much that when I stirred the surface of the sand with a piece of rigid tubing, it clouded the entire tank again...opaque. I've got a cheap-o filter running to try to clear it up faster. Is there any need to wash this stuff further or will stirring and filtering be enough? I'm wondering how this might affect a jawfish, for instance. Does the substrate need to be really clean?
I put new sand in a bucket and take it outside. I use the water hose to fill the bucket, dump, fill, dump, fill till it's clear water. You need to remove the fines so it won't cloud the tank. Then I cover the bottom of the tank (just the way I do it) with egg crate, then base rock, then the sand, and then the live rock (or the rock you want for your aquascape). This keeps the rock off the bottom of the tank and allows the diggers to work and not collapse The aquascape. Then take a plate and lay it on the sand and pour the water on it. Whala-clear water. This is only good for a deep sand bed. If you are using a shallow sand bed omit the egg crate.
The set up I described is usually for a display tank. A refugium typically does not have the rock work a display has. This discussion could be the start of a global size can of worms. I believe you want to set up a viewable refugium. That would differ from an under the tank refugium. Also a stand alone refugium compared to a sump/refugium combination would be set up differently also. The substrate size would also depend on the livestock you plan to house. If you want a jawfish as you suggested, you would not want to use sugar fine sand alone. You would want larger size substrate with coral rubble size pieces throughout. This brings up the benefits of a deep sand bed substrate size and purpose. Sounds like to me you are wanting a mixed system with macro algae for nutrient export. Nothing wrong with that and I believe that's what I am using as a refugium for my 200gal. The hardest thing to decide in this hobby is just what kind of tank you want and set it up correctly. Then inevitably something changes and we try to adapt what we have to the new conditions we want and surprisingly problems arise.......go figure. This is a subject I would like to discuss with anyone, so just give me a call.
Just another thought, if you are going to connect this new system to your display tank make sure it is cycled before connecting it. Would cause another set of problems with that much new material in an established system.Make sure you use union ball valves when doing your plumbing, these could be important in controlling the water flow in the refugium.
Thanks for all the advice! Yeah, it is so hard to figure out exactly what you really want! I think I decided I would like to keep a jawfish in this one. I used about 60 lb of sugar sand but cut it with larger reef sand (about 30 lbs) and what they call "Puka shell" - really large crushed coral and shells (about 30 lbs). I'm gonna bust up some of my extra live rock into rubble and add that as well. And thanks for mentioning about cycling this tank seperately, as I was thinking about that and you preemptively answered my question!
