Good critters and stuff for fuge??

[gmerek2]

Make sure you get mysid shrimp from a fellow reefer. It would be easiest to suck them up with bulb syringe. They reproduce and are fun to watch

[dave w]

Dave W - I have no idea what I am doing, so there is no contadictions at all in your post.  Refugiums are such a debated topic.  It is very interesting actually.  At this point I am kinda just trying to figure out if a refugium is only for macro algae or is there a pod benefit.  It seems to be a hotly debated subject.

 

One question for you is this - I have a recirculating skimmer at the moment.  It is fed by my return pump.   So the water from my refugium goes straight to my return pump and back to my tank.  Only a small portion of the water from my return pump manifold will go to feed the skimmer and flow back to the return pump.  In theory, this seems to help a little on the pumps, right? 

I'm not very qualified to help with skimmer and sump issues because I don't have a sump.  But I think you've got it right.

[Reefer_Madness]

Ok, so I've decided to go with a little different plan. I could use a little extra live rock in my system since I don't do the typical wall of rock that some reefers do. I'm going to fill the refugium with live rock rubble and install an algae scrubber above it. That will give critters a place of refuge in the rock and I can try the nutrient export in the scrubber. I ordered a Santa Monica Filtration Surf2x so it doesn't have any pumps to chop up critters. It will just float above the live rock in the fuge compartment.

 

Theoretically, the pods would have a good home in the live rock. I would experiment with the flow in that area for optimum growth. When they leave home and go across the overflow weir they would have a straight shot to the return pump which would send them to the tank with a small percentage going to the skimmer. In addition, I think the scrubber floating above, growing algae, would be beneficial to the pods as well. Kind of like a natural feeder for critters. I have read the algae scrubbers grow pods pretty good too.

Edited April 2, 2016 by Reefer_Madness

[Squishie89]

Another idea would be the Marine Pure stuff, tons more surface area for bacteria to colonize than any rock available.

[Reefer_Madness]

Another idea would be the Marine Pure stuff, tons more surface area for bacteria to colonize than any rock available.

That's a good idea.