hello everyone Im new to salt water aquariums, reefs, and this club. Im jumping in with both feet. i have a new125 gal reef ready, i put in a wall, made a sump/refugium out of a 75, bought a aqu c 180 skimmer, 80 pounds of live rock, ro fillter, sand, so on and so on, and have not bought my frist fish. i have no idea what to put in a refugium, (sand or mud). my goal is to make this somewhat easy to mantain, if posable. any help would be great! thanks
I recommend mud; however, cost comes into effect here. you will pay dearly for refugium mud. I am about ready to connect my drilled 55 refugium to my main sump; but I am probably going to use Oolite due to cost of mud. I think if I have plenty of Macro-algae everything will be fine and it will function as planned!
Im not worried too much about the cost of the mud, i was under the impression that refugium mud has to be changed occationally, I would like to use a subtrate that will last through the life of the system. Im also wanting to know what kind of algae and animals are the most beneficial. thanks for the help
I'm personally not a fan of the mud, I would go with a deep live sand bed, min 4" dp. and for micro algae I would suggest cheato, put a good flow on it and use a simple 6500k spiral bulb and a simple alum. hang on light like you get from lowes, cheato grows best under 6500k lighting.
thanks for the help i have the clamp on grow light from lowes now. the next question i have concerning sump/fuge, is it best to leave it open to the air, or make a lid to help slow the evaporation. im finding that evaporation is happening almost as fast as my ro filter can make water
I keep a half lid over my fuge just to keep the clamp on light from some of the salt creep and also from falling into the fuge, Yep it has done that before. You should be getting around one to two gal. per day evap, is normal for that size system, and that does depend on the tank temp and lights your using, but you should leave as much open as you can even though there will be more evap. this will help in maintaing your ph and help with gass exchanges in the system. Also some movement across the top of the tank helps with ozidation and gass exchange.
It really isn't necessary to leave it open unless u have a wet-dry filter, or you just want the macro algae to get good lighting for photosynthesis. The macro-algae and marine plants absorb CO2 in your water and initially create and release oxygen as a by-product that is in no way beneficial to the plant. I believe covered or not it will still serve its purpose. Gaseous exchange through photosynthesis and making ur aquarium more oxygenated and healthier!. Keep in mind all Algae does this and there is no "bad" algae in a refugium.
Evaporation can be your friend when helping keep things cool. It's much cheaper to run a fan and make RO/DI water than to run a chiller.
I have to disagree with this one, Oxydation is aquired thru the algae, true, but that is not enough alone to support the whole system, and the oxygen has to be aquired from somewere in order for the algae to release, via, surface agitation, your skimmer, overflows ect. And true if the rest of the system has enough agitation to produce the oxygen required then you are probably fine with the fuge totally closed, but personally I try and supply as much open area as possible for the gas release and to provide oxygen for the system. Also some micro algea is better to use then others, for instance I have had Calupra turn sexual and polute my whole tank before, were as cheato does not do that.
I agree AMENO deffinately, I just took into consideration that there will be plenty of gas exchange through tank evaporation, and oxygen being brought into the system via, overflow boxes, or return lines, or skimmer. Come on guys check out the Calvin Cycle. Oxidation is caused by the use of phosphates in the water (oxidative phosphorylation). This is why algae grows sooo good in high phosphate water. It needs it for photosynthesis!
ok, ok don't start throwing all those big college words at me My head will start hurting (oxidative phosphorylation) By the way you never did call about your skimmer
If you no longer need it, that's cool, just let me know and I'll sell to someone else, I was just holding it because you wanted it. Sorry didn't mean to hijack this thread
completely ok, forums have been dead lately anyways. Im sry just sell it too someone else....i was finally able to hook-up my BerlinXL in my central sump now...once again im sorry u should be able to get a nice chunk for it tho!!! Im pretty sure Paradis ehas them retailing for 200.00$!
