whAT EX IS A refugium
- Thread starter kamdogg
- Start date
azrile
Member
A refugium is a seperate tank from your main tank that shares water with it. It has many functions;
1. It increases water volume in your tank system. This is good because the more water in your tank, the slower things will go wrong. (think of it as the bad stuff is being diluted).
2. It provides a place where you can grow certain things that won't become victims of the fish in your main tank. Pods are a good example of this. If you put some live rock in your refugium, the small critters will flourish because nothing is in their to eat them.
3. You can put stuff in there that you don't want in your display tank such as macroalgae. Macroalgae is very beneficial to the water quality, but it also grows really fast, and can quickly become an eyesore in the main tank. If you put it in the refugium, you can control it much better. I also put some hitchhiker crabs in my refugium until I can figure out what they are and what they eat.
4. You put filters, heaters, skimmers etc all in your refugium, thus removing those eyesores from your main tank.
I have probably the simplist refugium you can make. I have an overflow box on my main tank, which drops water into the refugium. On the left side of the refugium I have macroalgae growing, on the right side I have LR along with a powerhead that pumps water back into the main tank.
1. It increases water volume in your tank system. This is good because the more water in your tank, the slower things will go wrong. (think of it as the bad stuff is being diluted).
2. It provides a place where you can grow certain things that won't become victims of the fish in your main tank. Pods are a good example of this. If you put some live rock in your refugium, the small critters will flourish because nothing is in their to eat them.
3. You can put stuff in there that you don't want in your display tank such as macroalgae. Macroalgae is very beneficial to the water quality, but it also grows really fast, and can quickly become an eyesore in the main tank. If you put it in the refugium, you can control it much better. I also put some hitchhiker crabs in my refugium until I can figure out what they are and what they eat.
4. You put filters, heaters, skimmers etc all in your refugium, thus removing those eyesores from your main tank.
I have probably the simplist refugium you can make. I have an overflow box on my main tank, which drops water into the refugium. On the left side of the refugium I have macroalgae growing, on the right side I have LR along with a powerhead that pumps water back into the main tank.
azrile
Member
First thing is to clip the macroalgae and throw it away. That is how you remove nitrates and phosphates from your system.
Also a 5-10% water change every 2 weeks or so. I'm not sure how important it is though, I will probably end up doing this once a month pretty soon...
I also test every week for ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, pH and salinity. I use tap water for my top-offs and water changes, I had it checked and it has very low phospates so I dont' bother testing that anymore. I also started testing calcium/alkalinity because I'm going to start adding corals soon.
I plan on keeping my fish load very low, so will stop testing ammonia, nitrites and nitrates as frequently. As long as you don't have a fish rotting or overfeed, or have something else crazy happen, I don't think they will change much.
Also a 5-10% water change every 2 weeks or so. I'm not sure how important it is though, I will probably end up doing this once a month pretty soon...
I also test every week for ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, pH and salinity. I use tap water for my top-offs and water changes, I had it checked and it has very low phospates so I dont' bother testing that anymore. I also started testing calcium/alkalinity because I'm going to start adding corals soon.
I plan on keeping my fish load very low, so will stop testing ammonia, nitrites and nitrates as frequently. As long as you don't have a fish rotting or overfeed, or have something else crazy happen, I don't think they will change much.
