Help with my fuge..

[rdm]

So if you have read my past few threads my 46g bow is back up and running.
My 20g fuge if filled with about 10-15gal of water, has a 1''' mud bed and a 1/2'' argonite cap. I also have two softball size pieces of cheato.
The fuge also houses my heaters, corallife SS, ATO, 18w of 6700k PC lighting and a Mag 7 return pump.
As my take cycles I am looking into my clean upcrew for my DT and also how to further my fuge.
What else, in the form of life, do I need in my fuge?
Also, how to I maintain my cheato?
-Ryan

 

[natclanwy]

Don't really need much else in the fuge but you can add some snails and hermits if you want. I added some to mine because I was getting a fair amount of dietrus building up on the sand and I wanted some nassarius snails to help stir the sand bed in my fuge. The chaeto is pretty easy to take care of whenever it gets too big just pull out the excess and pass it along to another hobbyist near you seems like someone is always looking for chaeto.

 

[t316]

Is this fuge visable in the room? I still haven't figured out why folks want to set up a fuge with so much detail....lights, etc. Does the cheato need lights

 

[natclanwy]

Originally Posted by T316
http:///forum/post/2571827
Is this fuge visable in the room? I still haven't figured out why folks want to set up a fuge with so much detail....lights, etc. Does the cheato need lights

If you want it to grow it needs lights I ran my fuge for the last year and a half with just the light that comes in through the window next to my tank and I never had to harvest my chaeto. I put a $5 incandecent shop light with 30W 6500K flourescent bulb over my fuge at the begining of march and harvested about a third of a 5gal bucket worth of chaeto a month later.
Not sure what you mean by detail. Most fuges that I have set up and have seen on the boards usually just have chaeto or other macro algea with a cheap flourescent light and then some have a sandbed and others don't.

 

[michaeltx]

a good setup will determine what the fuge can actually do one that isnt set up with proper filtration it can draw down the main system.
If you use the same concepts of setting up your DT into the setup of the fuge tank it will be much more benificial then if it wasnt.
any algaes will need light to grow but you dont have to get high lights for it to grow. a common clip on will work with the worst lighting is actually what it likes anything 6500k or less is Ideal for macro algaes to thrive under. also a 24/7 lighting scheme helps keep the PH and o2 levels in check.
mike

 

[rdm]

Originally Posted by T316
http:///forum/post/2571827
Is this fuge visable in the room? I still haven't figured out why folks want to set up a fuge with so much detail....lights, etc. Does the cheato need lights

Not much detail to mine, just followed what others have recomended. Of corse plants need light. My fuge is in a closet, the cheato would be dead in a few days without light.....

 

[thomas712]

Originally Posted by rdm
http:///forum/post/2571781
What else, in the form of life, do I need in my fuge?
-Ryan
Mine happens to be a 55 gallon filtration tank.
55 gallon refugium ~ Filtration tank. From time to time I have or have had the following.
I have a good 4.5-5 inch sand bed made from ootlic style aragonite sand.
Chaetomorpha algae and Several hunks of liverock.
I have a growing number of amphipods, copepods, isopids and have several chitons running around.
I have Fire worms, Terebellidae, Cirratulids and Sabella worms, melanostigma, chaetopterid worms, and spirobidae worms all over the glass rocks and even the heater.
I also have a couple of unknown hermit crabs, a red leg hermit.
A fighting conch, micro snails, Turbo snails, Stometella vara , a nassarious snail and astrina starfish.
There are several sponges growing in there.
I even have jewel anemones growing in there.
and one nice 2 year old + brittle starfish
Now some of this grew quite naturally from the live rock, some you add like the snails and crabs, or in my case even the starfish, and you don't really need to feed this tank as much as the main tank either. Diversity of filtration methods and diversity of life.
Thomas