Live sand,miracle mud,kitty litter?

:-/I am getting ready to build a refugium and been researching old threads and unless I missed it, it seems to be equal on what everyone uses. So if everyone that has refugium could just quickly state-

What you use- live sand,unscented kitty litter (CLAY),miracle mud,or mix.

How deep is your substrate.

What is the yearly maintance if any (adding,replacing the mud,sand,clay)

I thank everyone that participates. I am just trying to find whats works the BEST with little maintance I dont know if there is a difference. This will help me decide what to use.

 

I use mineral mud, works fine. I plan on changing 1/4 per year.

 

Thanks for your info troyboy84

Maybe a better Q's is does it really matter what you use in your refugium? they all work the same? just a matter of cost

 

you shouldn't have to replace any of them really. miracle mud can create a anerobic zone with just 2 inches, but it is live mud and you might get some weird stuff growing in your fuge.
i think the mud is just to expensive for mud.
also i think you should decide what plant your want. if your just using chaeto, i don't think theres point to using anything other then sand.

 

Not quite the same. Miracle mud has a lot of minerals that will slowly leech into your system over time. Good for corals.

I personally use both. I have a 20" runway in my refugium. It is split down the middle. Mud on one side, DSB on the other. Working awesome so far.

 

I thinking of using a old 6gal plastic tank with a 15w light hood that I found in storage would that make a difference on what I would want to use or is this just to small and I should go bigger. I am adding this seperate with my trickle filter

 

100% clay kitty litter for mine. I have about 6 inches of that and a ball of cheato that I keep lit at night. The only maintenance I do in my fuge is trimming the cheato.

 

could be way off here but i think i've seen it mentioned that a decent size for your fuge is about 10% of your dt size. I dont see how going bigger than that could really be a problem...however, anything smaller than that might not be able to keep up.

 

You should be able to find mineral mud for under $20 a gallon. I use it because it came with my fuge, i have done some research on both mineral and miracle mud and i think they are the same thing, miracle being more expensive. They contain elements or minerals wich are supose to be good for the aquarium. I currently have cheatu growing in mine. Going to add some pods later. Keep us posted on what you decide to do.

 

Mineral Mud is just alkaline clay from Ga. Get the cheap kitty litter from a wall mart kozy kat or something like that works just as well as mineral mud and all the mud has to be replaced every so often as it become exhausted from the alkaline minerials being used up. I would never change it once its in Buffer will fix it