Refugiums: Yay or Nay?

[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.

[soapy]

I enjoy having a refuge. Just for the idea of having a second different ecosystem. Sort of like having the mangrove swamp next to the lagoon and reef. I love looking in there and seeing thousands of pods and mysids cavorting amongst the macros and fan worms day and night.

[AquaAddict]

If you want to keep Mandarins, or leopard wrasses, etc., you will a better success rate if you have a refugium.

AquaAddict