Refugium Journal: a must read of my experiences

As my name states I'm passionate about reef keeping. I believe the responsibility of this "hobby" is to provide the highest level of care possible to create an environment where fish and corals thrive and flourish.

What follows is a journal of sorts. It details my display tank (all aspects of it) so you can understand the relationship between factors.

(I absolutely hate when some one posts in ignorance this is what I do it works great!! But leaves out significant highly relevant details like their tank set up, it's longevity, water parameters, livestock, lighting and flow, what there definition of great is... and so fourth.)

To start with: our aquariums are a controlled complex chemical environment with countless biological and chemical factors that are constantly playing a role causing changes. With all that going on it is "our" responsibility is to maintain stability.A very small list of factors affecting stability; lighting spectrums, nitrogen cycle, CO2 build up, water salinity, trace minerals, calcium/Magnesium/Alkalinity, Pod production as an alternate food source and waste removal, and the list goes...

Now that you have a rough foundation of understanding to work with here's my set up. Why I do what I do.

My tank:
55 Gallon Long
Red Sea coral pro salt
30 lbs LR (with 25 lbs more being added soon)
3 " sand bed
Eshops 75 HOB skimmer ( runs 24/7 and this product is awesome)
2* radion xr 15 pros (40% intensity/ 4 hours with 12k- 4 hours with 18k- 3 hours with very low moonlight)
Aqua clear filter with only a (sponge)& (chemi pure elite)

My refugium: (There's 2)

CPR 5 gallon HOB:
12 on/12 off
6500k CFL lighting 60-70 watts
Mesh bag of Matrix
3" Fiji mud
Chaeto
(Whatever small pump comes with it)

20 gallon fish tank:
3" Fiji mud
4 lbs of Rubble Rock
2* 6500k Compact Flourescent bulbs from lowes(18 on/ 6 off)
metal clamp shop light fixture
5* different species of caulerpa
Chaeto
300-400 GPH return pump
2 * turbo snails
3 * emerald crabs
2 * nerite snails


Live stock: 2 mated clown fish, reef safe wrasse, twin spotted goby, mandarin, gold coral banded shrimp, arrow crab, 5 * emerald crabs, plus around 30 various hermits/snails. 3 * bubble tipped anemone

Corals: 2 * acans, 2 * chalices,15 * different species of mushrooms, elegance coral, 7 * various palythoas and zoanthids. 1 * yellow/green toadstool. (I'll be adding more frags in due time but mainly sticking to LPS and mushrooms. )

The Whys:
I broadcast feed mostly every day. My nitrates and phosphates are close to but above zero. It'll take roughly 2 months maybe less for the refugium to be great at nutrient exporting. Nuisance algae can and will grow in the fuge. Leave it be. Why you may ask? It's doing nutrient exporting as well. Plus the snails/pods eat on it. Plus , and most importantly, for reasons unknown to me it stays in the refugium and stays out of the DT. Its odd but that is just what happens. At one point i had 8 different species of nuisance algae in the fuge. I never touched it, it never spread to the main tank, and in time it all died off. Took maybe three weeks.

The macroalgae/nuisance algae absorbs nitrates/phosphates in order to grow. It's important to trim the macroalgae as this manual removal is what actually removes the N&P from your tank. When it comes time to trim manually remove clumps with your hand. I tried scissors once but it caused a mass die off the macro algae (70-80%) turns out the cuts from scissors are so fine that the macro algae cant stop the bleeding in time to survive the trauma. On another note: Snails, Snails, Snails learn to love these critters. They do the manual removal of the nuisance algae in turn manually removing the N&P from your tank. Get a wide variety of species of snails as certain species only eat certain nuisance algaes. Even if the nuisance algae dies it'll release N&P back into your tank for the macroalgae to use it up.

Why emerald crabs in my refugium? They being scavengers started scavenging in my DT on my LPS corals. So they were banished to the fuge with back to back life sentences. Interestingly enough they love it there. They eat some of the macroalgae, some of the nuisance, and some of the pods.

PODs. From copeopods to amphipods to the thousands of other small pod species in the refugium the importance of their role in creating and maintaing a healthy reef system cannot be stressed enough.
1. They eat leftover food particles from feeding
2. Since the average hobbyist only feeds there tank anywhere from once a week to once a day. The live pods in your tank become a nutrient rich snack to hold your fish/corals over til the next feeding. Let me stress here and now that pods are not a main food source but a slow trickle of nourishment til the main meal. ( the exception being mandarin fish species. )
3. When the pods breed( and they will like rabbits on viagra) their larvae enters water stream becoming food for sponges, filter feeders, and numerous other corals.

Fiji mud: I use it and I love it. Why? because it makes a great home pods and critters, with the interaction between the macroalgae roots and the mud it promotes the low oxygen type of environment for denitrifying bacteria. Now I don't know the extent of the impact it makes but my thinking is that a little is better than none. Plus the mud has trace minerals/elements in it. Again I don't know the full extent of its benefits or the positive impact it has on our systems. But my reef is happy, healthy, growing, and stable.

As an end note: I love my reef and I want to provide the highest level of care to promote healthy growing Marine life. This journal is my gift to you so you can maintain responsible reefing. And not be one of those guys who likes pretty fish that will die in his tank in a month due in part to ignorance. The contents of this journal took a lot of trial and error and countless hours of pouring through inadequate forum posts to find the relevant meaningful information I now pass on to you.

 

Thanks for sharing your experence. I also use Fiji mud for growing mangroves in my refugium. They love it.

Are your lights on from 12 AM to 12 PM?

 

I'm currently trying various lighting schedules. I was having chronically high ph when I did reverse lighting