Quote:
Originally Posted by globaldesigns
I do have a refuge in my sump. It has changed over the past year, due to SPS issues.
Refuge use to have 9-10 inches DSB with about 8 inches of LR. A few months back I got rid of the DSB, and just had the existing LR that was in it put back in. Just this weekend, I have now filled the refuge with LR, where the rock is above the water line, creating a LR filter.
I run approx 2.5 litres, but also dosing Vodka. I am still in the ramp up stages of the vodka, so haven't reached the maintenance dose yet. Reason for the vodka is that I had high phosphates which probably was the main cause of my coral deaths. The vodka dosing has brought the high phosphates down to almost nothing. don't know where the phosphates are coming/came from, but this is helping.
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Thanks for the detailed description as I am in the same boat tying to figure out what to do with my refugium. I had the same issue with phosphate being higher than nitrate, when I first started using the pellets both elements started to decrease but once nitrate reach undetectable levels the phosphate stopped decreasing. I was stuck with that bit of phosphate that I couldn't get rid off no matter what I tried, then finally I started running Rowaphos. Vorla, All of sudden phosphate dropped to zero, well I guess not exactly zero but good enough that my Hanna phosphate test kit reads zero. Now because I am running pellets, Rowaphos and carbon, I am planning to get rid of my refugium with semi dsb( only around 4 inches of sand) with LR and run a oversized vertex 300 cone skimmer. I just don't think the refug is needed anymore. The only down side to all this is pellets takes away oxygen, absorbs other metal elements and it address the ph swing during night time plus after I started running pellets I noticed my orp dropped from 450 to 375. Its hard to decide what to do, i guess refugium is good if you use a little bit of pellets and are able to grow chaetos and harvest it frequently. One question, I always thought it takes a bit of work to dose vodka maybe you should try rowaphos, it just seem to be a lot less work.