Refugium with chaeto or bio-pellet reactor
 

I am in the process of setting up a new tank, a 60 gallon solana cube.
I will be running a vertex omega skimmer in a roughly 20 gallon sump.
I will be heavy on the zoas with a few LPS as well.
I was reading thru a thread on reef2reef by a guy name Jourdy, and he has had great sucess with bio-pellets.
I have built a chamber for a refugium in my sump originaly to put chaeto in there, but have been reading up on bio-pellet lately.
Being a new build would I be better served with refugium of reactor?
Please post your reasons for your decision as well.

This all depends on what your goals are and what it plans for the tank are

Are you keeping some mandrins or fish needing pod population? Get the fuge
Are you more worried about nutrient export or nitrates and phosphates get the pellets
Using the fuge as sole nutrient export won't work either unless your cheato is he size of your DT it helps but can't be the sole nutrient export

So it all depends on what your doing with the tank
Both will work givin the circumstances

My 2 cents

I can't vote
 

....I have both. I started out with the refugium. I love the pods and all the critters that thrive in the predation-free environment. But, as far as bacteria population and nutrient reduction, the biopellet is more effective. So, I added the biopellet reactor later and kept my refugium. My tank is thriving, and my copperband is nice and fat.

My goal is to have beautiful happy zoas.
something like this (Hope its ok to borrow link to his picture)
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y23...psea77913f.jpg

Chaeto to grow pods
Reactor for nutrient export
Your sump is way too small to have enough chaeto for nutrient export. Reactor is less maintenance too. If you end up running both, be careful not to strip your system of nutrients or your chaeto will die.

Refugium with chaeto or bio-pellet reactor
 

Just to clear it up my sump is 24 x 24 15



I fiured the 20 gallons is the axctual volume of the water in the sump.

Refugium is 6 X 18 12"

Here is a picture without water, refugium is up front
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/09/06/uzu5u8es.jpg

Personally I would use a soluable carbon source like vinegar or vodka or mox of both instead of pellets.

With pellets there really is no control , you run the risk of the pellets failing if the reactor fails and not to mention they take up space , smell and are expensive.

If space is available I would combine a few different export methods .

Macro algae , GAC /gfo , carbon dosing , skimming etc.

my zoanthid systems are vinegar dosed and that keeps nitrates undetectable and po4 is also undetectable on a Hanna phosphorous.

With po4 so low the beauty is I can cut my carbon doses down if I need to or raise as I need to.

Between vodka , pellets and vinegar I've noticed that the zoanthids respond very well to the acetic acid and growth and colors couldn't be better.

Can you recommend any good write ups on vinegar dosing?
Any advantage or disadvantage between vinegar and vodka?

http://reefkeeping.com/joomla/index....arine-aquarium

Some people tend to get cyano with vodka

Here is an incredible thread explaining what carbon dosing is and does.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=2134105


Here is a link to the directions for vinegar or vodka

http://reefkeeping.com/joomla/index....arine-aquarium

No advantages by using either as they end up in the same path it's just vodka takes a extra step to get there.

Some people report less cyano using vinegar , some end up using a lot with big tanks so go with vodka or a mix of both.

Vinegar has an immediate effect of ph drop , so it's recommended to spread it out over the course of a day if you have to us a lot . In my home system of 200g I dose 72ml of vinegar as soon as the lights come on . To offset the ph drop I also time my doser to dose soda ash. I don't get much of a drop in ph on this tank.

A while back I switched out the bio pellets on a 500g reef , I was having issues with chalices , a lot of acros and the list goes on. Finally I decided to pull the pellets and switch it out to vinegar , it took one month for the vinegar to completely do what the pellets were doing . I immediately saw better results in all sps and all lps........my issues were gone in one month. The dose for this tank is big though at 475ml a day so it has to be broke down and dosed over a photo period.


Now the chart above shows a 16 week dosing schedule , most people do it on a 4 week chart like this.

0.1 ml per gallon for 7 days(week 1 )
0.2 ml per gallon for 7 days (week 2)
0.3 ml per gallon for 7 days (week 3 )
0.4 ml per gallon for 7 days (week4)

Whether you decide to go above 0.4 ml per gallon will depend on your bioload and nutrients as well method removed.

Randy's personal guideline for vinegar is 15ml per 100g


Keep in mind that vodka is 8x stronger than vinegar , so one of the reasons I chose vinegar over vodka is because the dose is a little less potent per ml added.

Before going head on do some research on it all. Bio pellets are also a form of carbon dosing :)

You have to monitor nitrates and phosphates , keep your skimmer cup cleaned regularly and cosistency is the key to bacterial growth and export.

Before doing any of the above your system should be brought down to at least average reef conditions as far as nitrates and phosphates go . Either being off the chart is going to be hard to work with as there is a ratio of how bacteria take in and use nutrients.

None of this interferes with your calcium and alkalinity dosing schedule .

Good luck