How To Set Up A Refugium Sump

What To Put In A Refugium (Setup Guide)

Staff Writer
September 19, 2022

What To Put In A Refugium (Setup Guide)

Staff Author
September 19, 2022

A saltwater refugium is a separate expanse where macroalgae and microfauna can grow. Keeping a refugium helps macroalgae grow without fish eating information technology and without overrunning your principal reef tank, and it provides a identify for copepods and other isopods to multiply in peace.

Refugiums provide many benefits, including natural water filtration through macroalgae, stabilization of water atmospheric condition (specially pH and oxygen levels), serves every bit temporary acclimation tanks and provides a natural nutrient source of zooplankton and phytoplankton.

What To Put In A Refugium

Best items to put in a refugium:

Macroalgae such as sea lettuce or chaeto
Alive rock rubble or manufactured biological media
Microfauna such as copepods and amphipods
A powerful refugium low-cal with a means of automatically decision-making its on/off cycle

Optional items:

Substrates such equally sand or refugium mud
Invertebrates or fish

Refugium algae

When it comes to macroalgae, the recommended types are Chaeto and Make clean Ocean Lettuce. They are the standard algae for a reason; they are easy to care for, they grow fast and they are efficient.

This is not similar the algae that grow on your rocks or glass, that's microalgae. Macroalgae that you lot grow in a refugium is non annoying or harmful. It is beneficial because it naturally filters the h2o and it's the main reward of having a refugium.

Best macroalgae for a refugium

The easiest to keep macroalgae is sea lettuce although chaeto is a popular and excellent alternative. In that location are other practiced macroalgae to choose from as well. Well-nigh notably, gracilaria is a good choice that comes in many varieties.

Bounding main lettuce

Information technology improves the water quality and competes with nuisance algae by arresting excess nutrients, it provides a biogenic substrate where various organisms (including copepods) can remainder, hide and reproduce, and it proves a nutritious nutrient source for various herbivorous invertebrates and fish.

Your refugium tin produce enough sea lettuce to feed all of your herbivores while also helping go on your aquarium cleaner.

Chaeto

Chaetomorpha, often referred to as Chaeto for short and sometimes referred to as Spaghetti algae, is another popular macroalgae used in refugiums to reduce the phosphate and nitrate levels for more clean water in reef tanks. It is a non-invasive macroalga and can be easily trimmed when it grows in backlog.

Pom Pom Gracilaria

Pom Pom Gracilaria is another macroalgae that grows well in a refugium and is excellent for nutrient export. Like bounding main lettuce, it can exist fed to herbivores and is an fantabulous food source for them.

Pom Pom is a deeper ruby-red color unlike about other macroalgae. Its appearance is what draws nearly to it over the more effective ocean lettuce or chaeto.

Bounding main Lettuce

Chaeto

Pom Pom

Alive Rock Or Biological Media

Alive stone is a great substrate for your refugium. They give additional infinite for helpful bacteria to abound and serve as a main nutrient exporter in the reef tank. Live rock tin can also provide shelter for microfaunae such every bit amphipods and copepods. Microfauna is a good food source for fish and corals and are fantabulous members of a cleanup coiffure. The porous rocks will provide a practiced home for the microfauna population, in addition to beneficial bacteria.

CaribSea Life Rock

MarinePure Cake

Brightwell Aquatics

Microfauna

Microfauna is one of the great benefits of the refugium. All sorts of microscopic and macroscopic organisms thrive in a refugium and take bully benefits for your saltwater reef system every bit a whole.

Copepods and Amphipods

Pods of all types are a dandy improver to whatsoever refugium and reef or saltwater aquarium. In the refugium, pods will eat all sorts of detritus that cycles through the plumbing from the display and settles in the refugium.

In addition to beingness a useful fellow member of your cleanup crew, pods provide an excellent food source for coral and fish. If yous programme to keep a standard mandarin goby, live pods are their primary nutrient source, and caring for them without an extremely large refugium with a healthy pod population tin be quite hard.

Phytoplankton

Phytoplankton can potentially grow in your refugium only you lot'll likely need to be dosing phytoplankton directly into your fuge to feed and maintain a good for you pod population. Phytoplankton volition too make their style to your brandish tank and are a healthy food source for corals and other life in your principal aquarium.

Benign Bacteria

Beneficial bacteria will grow in live stone or biological media in your fuge. The more beneficial bacteria the meliorate. While a lot of bacteria will live in the live rock in your display tank, supplementing it past providing bacteria more porous stone, exist it real or synthetic, is a great manner of helping y'all maintain a healthy ecosystem that tin be much more self-sustaining.

Copepods

Phytoplankton

Beneficial Bacteria

Refugium Calorie-free

LEDs are a common light source for refugiums. LEDs are pop due to their pocket-sized size and incredible power. Other options such as fluorescents tend to be quite large and hard to target the refugium well and metal halides produce far too much heat to be practical. Also, LEDs last an extremely long time and eliminate the need to replace bulbs.

I highly recommend Kessil LED lights for any aquarium lighting needs and they take a few first-class choices for refugiums. Personally, I utilize the Kessil A360X above my refugium on my 125-gallon tank. Information technology's non inexpensive but it's extremely powerful and produces extremely healthy bounding main lettuce and keeps my display free of algae with the exception of some thin moving picture algae that occasionally needs to be cleaned from the glass. The H160 Tuna Flora and H80 Tuna Flora are excellent alternatives for smaller aquariums. If you're growing chaeto you lot may need to turn the intensity down a flake if you detect the chaeto isn't flourishing.

Other manufacturers brand some not bad grow lights merely Kessil is the best choice in my opinion. Going with a cheap grow bulb notwithstanding probably won't become y'all the results you'll expect. It may work for smaller setups but a powerful grow light is the almost effective choice.

Kessil A360x

Kessil H160

Kessil H80

Does a refugium need calorie-free?

Similar all plants, macroalgae require light to grow and survive. The actual growth rate will exist influenced by the intensity of the lite they receive, as photosynthesis is the only way they eat, compared with corals.

How long do y'all run your refugium lite?

Establishing a photoperiod depends on how your refugium is set up. If y'all have a refugium that is attached to your brandish tank, you'd have to run the same lighting schedules. But if your refugium is separate, the recommended photoperiod is the contrary of your display tank. When your lights are on in your display tank they should be off in your refugium and vice versa. This will help you stabilize the pH and oxygen levels in the water. When photosynthesis happens, plants accept up carbon dioxide from the water to store free energy. This will alter the carbonic acid balance and raises pH. In a reef tank filled with photosynthetic corals, in that location is a lot of photosynthetic activeness when lights are on, and therefore sharp pH swings can happen between day and night cycles. If yous add together the same imbalance of pH from your refugium by running the same light cycles, pH volition swing fifty-fifty more dramatically. Past alternating photosynthetic periods in your reef tank and refugium, yous will create a remainder within the organization. Some reefers run their refugiums lights 24/7, even so, that is not recommended considering of the reason we discussed and considering copepods demand the embrace of darkness to come out and feed.

Optional - Substrate

I personally run my refugium bare bottom merely there are arguments for including sand or refugium mud. Hither are my thoughts on those choices. Your experience may be different and certainly, there are many paths to successfully maintaining a salubrious reef aquarium.

Sand

Deep sand beds are touted for their ability to harbor benign bacteria. This is certainly true but I believe live stone or biological media to exist a better option for this than sand. In my experience, sand tin can harbor a lot of detritus that needs to be removed and makes it more than difficult for pods to consume. Stirring upwards the sand can also release a cloud that can be harmful to your aquarium livestock.

Refugium Mud

Miracle Mud is a product that is 80% sand. The product claims to accept the ability to furnish trace elements inside the reef tank while also containing salubrious bacteria for denitrification. There are plenty of examples where reef tanks thrive with this type of substrate in the refugium.

However, the benefits of the mud are debatable and cipher has been proved all the same. It tin also be hard to clean and information technology will accept a lot of built-upwards waste over fourth dimension, therefore it needs to be replaced a few times a year.

Optional - Invertebrates / Fish

Invertebrates

I accept no invertebrates or fish in my refugium although some snails that like green motion picture algae may exist helpful in keeping your refugium cleaner and reduce competing algae. Trochus and ceriths are the best choices for this task.

Detritus-eating crabs and snails might be a proficient improver for heavily stocked or heavily fed tanks. Ideally, pods volition do the heavy lifting of consuming detritus in your fuge but if they aren't capable of keeping upwardly with the influx you may want to add some additional help to keep upward with the chore.

Fish

There aren't really whatever fish that are recommended for keeping in a refugium although you certainly can exercise so. You may take reasons that you want to practice this but in that location aren't compelling reasons to exercise and so for the health of your refugium or display.

The simply time I've put fish in my refugium is to protect one that is getting picked on my other fish. Alternatively, y'all tin can put the fish that is doing the bullying in your refugium to permit the fish being bullied the opportunity to effort to establish itself in the display before reintroducing the bang-up back into the chief display. The idea here is that the bully may take the more than passive role since it is the newcomer to the territory. Information technology may accept quite a while of keeping your fish separated for this to work and in that location's a good chance it won't only could be worth trying for some.

Types Of Refugium

There are basically 2 types of refugium – in-sump and hang-on.

Hang-On Refugium

These are refugiums that hang onto the rim of your display tank. Water is pumped from your display tank upward an intake tube into the refugium reservoir. Equally the water level rises inside the refugium, the water is poured back into the display aquarium.

These types of refugiums are piece of cake to access for removing macroalgae if information technology grows likewise big, somewhat cost-friendly, and they can use the lights and pumps you already have. The downside is that they don't expect too pretty, and you lot can't use different lighting periods on your refugium and main tank.

Besides, hang-on refugiums tend to be quite small which makes them far less effective at providing all of the benefits a more than appropriately sized refugium can provide.

In-Sump Refugium

This is ane of the most popular ways of setting upwards a refugium, by using your sump. You already got water move and filtration media in in that location, you have a bedroom that you can apply, everything is good.

Sure, the refugium will be harder to admission when you need to remove the macroalgae, just it won't be an eyesore for your display tank and you lot can run separate lighting schedules on information technology. And you don't need to add any actress pumps to your system, as you already take ane in your sump that will move water through the refugium.

Refugium starter kit

Some companies only offer refugium starter kits and I highly recommend this approach if you're calculation a new refugium to your aquarium.

I'thou a large fan of Algae Befouled. They provide excellent refugium starter kits and I highly recommend you lot bank check them out. Their kits include macroalgae, biological media, pods, phytoplankton, and a bacteria starter.

You'll nonetheless demand the refugium itself and a abound light, simply otherwise, you'll have everything you need to kick start a good for you refugium.

AlgaeBarn Refugium Starter Kit

Frequently Asked Questions Well-nigh Refugiums

Does a refugium reduce nitrates?

Yes. The macroalgae y'all grow will eat nitrates, ammonia, and phosphates from your h2o, and therefore naturally reduce nitrates levels.

Does a refugium need low-cal?

Like all plants, macroalgae require lite to grow and survive. The actual growth rate will be influenced by the intensity of the light they receive, as photosynthesis is the only way they swallow, compared with corals.

Does a refugium need sand?

It doesn't need sand. However many reefers adopt to use deep sand beds in their refugiums. They are between 4-5 inches or 6-8 inches deep.

Deep sand beds are a cracking place for modest creatures to dig into and algae to take root on.

The cons of using a sand bed are the collection of detritus over time and the increase in nitrates information technology will generate from all the waste. Expressionless or decomposable materials get trapped in the sand bed and every bit they decompose, they release nitrates.

To maintain a deep sand bed in a refugium you need to perform regular cleaning to remove excess detritus. Sand will require occasional cleaning and replacing, and that tin exist a daunting project that requires removing everything from the refugium.

How does a refugium work?

A refugium works by creating an area in your system that is separated from your aquarium. In this area yous can grow species that can't live in your main tank because they are eaten or because they are visually unpleasant for your display tank; species that are beneficial in terms of water filtration or that are a skilful food source.

How big does a refugium demand to be?

At that place is not a standard size every bit y'all can brand it every bit big as you lot desire, but the full general recommendation is to have a refugium that is 10-50% the size of your display tank. The bigger you make the refugium the more advantages it volition bring in terms of filtration and stabilization.

How much does a refugium cost?

The hang-on refugium is i of the cheapest types you tin can get, costing between $75 to $150 to set it upwards, while a sump-based refugium tin price betwixt $350 to $600. The hang-on refugium brings a lot of disadvantages and that'south why many reefers prefer to have information technology in the sump.

Should I put snails in my refugium?

Yous should limit the number of snails and other plant-eating organisms from your refugium if you are using your refugium to filter water since you lot don't want them to munch on your macroalgae.

Do you lot feed copepods in a refugium?

Some phytoplankton is naturally produced in your tank, but it is chop-chop consumed past corals and other organisms. Therefore you need to feed the immature pods if you want to support a high population. Regularly dose live phytoplankton in your refugium to support the growth of copepods.

Is a refugium worth it?

Having a refugium is definitely worth it and any reefer can confirm that. The h2o filtration provided past the macroalgae is great and you will have a big supply of salubrious adult copepods that will become food for corals and fish.

A refugium is definitely worth it. A well fix up, stocked, and maintained refugium volition provide a natural means of nutrient export by removing nitrates and phosphates from your reef aquarium. Information technology will also provide a natural live food source for many unlike fish, invertebrates, and corals in your display tank. A good refugium will help your aquarium move closer toward becoming a self-sustaining system that creates a healthier tank surroundings and requires less maintenance and equipment.

Can I put fish in my refugium?

Yes, you tin can put fish in a refugium merely under typical circumstances, information technology isn't ideal. Many fish volition need room to swim and nigh refugiums get packed with macroalgae making it difficult for the fish to move around freely. Some small herbivores may thrive in a refugium, withal.

You might want to avoid putting a fish that thrives on eating copepods and amphipods in your refugium. A voracious pod eater could significantly harm your pod population since the copepods and amphipods won't accept a safe oasis.

Also, a refugium can serve well as a place to isolate a fish that is being picked on past other fish. It obviously won't work as a quarantine tank since the h2o is shared, only information technology can provide a safe place for sickly fish to alive without beingness abused until y'all can determine a course of activity.

Practice you make clean a refugium?

Cleaning the refugium is non recommended equally you volition as well suck upwards the pods from it. Just prune the macroalgae when it becomes too crowded and that should be enough. If yous have microalgae overgrowing, brand sure that your macroalgae have everything information technology needs to grow. If your macroalgae is given a salubrious environment it will overgrow the microalgae.

Practice saltwater tanks demand a refugium?

Saltwater tanks don't need a refugium to exist successful. Nonetheless, because how many advantages a refugium brings to your display tank, you should consider having 1.

How much flow through refugium?

The flow rate inside your refugium is not very important. At that place's no show that high period is useful. 3-6 times your brandish tank volume per 60 minutes is more than enough.

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