Refugiums: Yay or Nay?

[albert_dao]

IMO, a well thought out reef aquarium should never require the services of a refugium. This off the back of the hundreds of setups I've down over the years.

[spedly]

I don't really have a reason for a refugium. I guess what's driving it more than anything is, "hey, I have a section in my sump for a refugium. maybe I should put something in there."

I like the sounds of "nutrient export" but I'm not sure if the section is big enough to have much of an impact. It's a 12.5"x14.5" section on a 150g display. Moreover that's probably not big enough to grow a sufficient amount of critters to feed a feed a mandarin.

I think I'm answering my own question as to whether or not I should get one going.

[coolhandgoose]

I'm in the same boat, I have a section of my sump that's been empty since the start of the tank. I can't decide what I want to do with it. I don't have a light either so if I want to grow cheato I'd have to get that as well.

Question : for feeding a mandarin do you guys take the pods out of the fuge or just let the return pump shoot them up should they fall in the return section?

[spedly]

Regarding the pods, my understanding is that only the larva will go through the return pump and into the display. However fish eat the adults - and they're too big to go through the return pump, so they need to be fished out manually.

The larva will grow in the display tank and eventually become tasty morsels if they have the required nutrients in a safe place inside display tank.

The more I went down the pod/refugium wormhole yesterday the more I realized that the easiest way to get enough stock is to have a tank dedicated for them. I don't think I want to do that right now.

[Trigger Man]

I liked the idea of a refugium and tried it with the trigger system Elite sump that has the built in fuge. In the end I could never get it to work out properly and ended up shutting it down and leaving it running just water. I try to put some LPS into my tank where possible as my extra filter cleaning. I was talking to a few guys that swear that using xenia's in the fuge area does more.

[Animal-Chin]

Originally Posted by albert_dao

IMO, a well thought out reef aquarium should never require the services of a refugium. This off the back of the hundreds of setups I've down over the years.

Funny thing is I've seen this same comment made in the past about skimmers, algae scrubbers, carbon, phosphate reducing media, you name it. Everything we seemingly can add to our tanks have positives and negatives but do the positives outweigh the negatives?

[shiftline]

I just seeded a bunch of live rock in the sump with pods... I think cheato or macro have benefit but only on large scale.. i personally dont think the tiny fuges that most of us run have a huge advantage on nutrient levels.. Pods is about the biggest benefit if you have a mandarin or pipe fish (i have both! haha)

[Animal-Chin]

Guess I could clean out my fuge and see if my nitrates go up, thatd be the only sure fire way to know for sure...

[shiftline]

Let us know the results if you try it

[albert_dao]

Originally Posted by Animal-Chin

Funny thing is I've seen this same comment made in the past about skimmers, algae scrubbers, carbon, phosphate reducing media, you name it. Everything we seemingly can add to our tanks have positives and negatives but do the positives outweigh the negatives?

Sure, but here's how I see it:

1. You don't need one. It's not like this is a matter of replacing something either, you just straight up can run a beautiful, healthy tank fuge free.

2. When you do have one, there are diminishing returns on its usefulness as a filter compared to just doing water changes and having good flow/skimmer.

3. They collect detritus over time. This is just more maintenance.

4. They take up resources (space, electricity, money, etc).

Given that I can run two tanks side by side, fuge/no fuge and end up with more or less the same results after a year, I'm of the motivation that they are completely dispensable.