Bio-balls VS Refugium??

macro likes around the 6700 kelvin

 

sweet i have a clip on reptile light that i can probably just put a different bulb in it, does it stay on all day/night or does it shut off? b/c the light i have has a built in timer on the cord? ive researched the calurpa and the stuff i am growing is the grape calurpa and its not as invasive as the stuff every one talks about, but it does spread fairly fast but my tangs keep it in check very well, ill just have to watch the fuge when i get it up and running. i most likely will be back on here ill update with pictures and what all did to my tank, and also on how i did my skimmer, b/c its not getting enough water in the 3rd chamber b/c of my return pump,

 

yeah i noticed in the pic how the skimmer was next to the pump and wondered how that would work...

for the lighting of the fuge, most of us do a reverse cycle, the fuge comes on whenever the display lights go off..the helps your tank keep the ph stable since ph naturally drops at night..but some people run the fuge light 24/7 and have no ill effect from it..i use the reverse cycle just cuz i think it needs some down time, and also running the lights at night allows the marco to grow at night, causing the macro to remove more nitrates and phosphates because the algaes in the display tank are in their down time not consuming as much as they would be if the display lights were on..hope that makes sense, been drinking a little.

 

Fuges do not replace bio balls. Bio-balls are biological filters. Live rock is a reef's bio logical filter. Fuges are for different thing. They are not the bio filters of reef tanks.

 

it made perfectly good sense, so when my lights turn off at 8 ill have my fuge turn on at about 730, and shut off when the kick back on! makes perfect sense! thanks alot for all the help its very appreciated!!!

 

right but in the ocean the rock and sand is the natural filter, so with a fuge, were just trying to mimic what is actually what nature has created in the first place? i think? lol

 

Live sand is not going to cause a cycle. Dry is cheap and will become live. Seed it with some from your tank if it makes you feel good.

You can find calculators on google to tell you how much sand you need for how deep you want for the area. Don't know what you have.

You want Oolitic sized sand.

You don't want live rock in your fuge.

There are people that use caulerpa, but the consensus is Cheato. Macro is macro, you do not need two. Cheato will work just fine and is very easy to maintain. Once you run macro you will want to run carbon. You should run carbon anyway, but macro will yellow the water. Carbon keeps it clean.

 

oh and actually my other post said i took the skimmer out of the sump b/c it wasnt doing its justice and right now its on the back of the tank lol but thats alright i understand if this was posted during a football game i wouldnt have got it at all!

 

ok i do have the dimensions of the area so ill will use the calculator, how deep should it be? 3-4 inches? and i do currently run carbon in my reactor so my water is crystal clear at the moment! and one of my LFS sells copepods so ill just go pick up a bag and put them in my sump! im sure you have to acclimate those just as everything else?

 

Well it's all "bio".... but when we talk bio filters we really mean how to get rid of ammonia and nitrites. Those kill. The end result is nitrates which can be tolerated more but cause other problems. W/D filters are the most efficient filters at reducing ammonia and nitrites to nitrates.

A fuge is for pods and nitrate reduction either from macro or a deep sand bed. Live rock will reduce the most, the fuge will mop up what is left.