when to add refugium?

[dzhuo]

Hi,
If I am starting a new reef tank and planning to add an refugium, when should I add it? should I add one after the tank has cycled completely and the live rock and live sand has been settled? or should I added it when the tank is still cycling?

thanks!
david

 

[psionicdragon]

Hiya David and welcome to Reefing =D

Refugium is a great thing. I am not as good as the others on here, but I think you could add it during the cycling because you can have a head start on growing the plants from a small batch. I wouldn't minding adding it early if I had the chance to do so.

I added my refugium not so long ago and its doing well.

Hope my advice works.

David

 

[dzhuo]

Hiya David and welcome to Reefing =D

Refugium is a great thing. I am not as good as the others on here, but I think you could add it during the cycling because you can have a head start on growing the plants from a small batch. I wouldn't minding adding it early if I had the chance to do so.

I added my refugium not so long ago and its doing well.

Hope my advice works.

David

if i add the refu from the beginning while the tank is still cycling, will the water quality good enough to support the plants or animals in the refu and the DSB?

thanks!
david

 

[Jeff Hood]

Here is how I started my 500 gallon tank. Doing it this way saved me from having any microalgae in my main tank and all the new tank algae blooms occured in my refugium.

I hooked everything up including the refugium. Got it running and added sand and salt and let it sit for a week or so getting things settled while I ordered my live rock.

Live rock came in and it was placed into the tank and aquascaped the way I wanted it. I let circulate for about two days with out lights on the main tank but ran the lights in the refugium 24/7. After 2 to 3 days I started running two metal halides over the tank for 4 hours per day to keep things alive on the new rock.

The cycle started and proceded slowly. I started developing lots of microalgae in the refugium but absolutly none in the main tank. The refugium sucked up all the nutrients from the cycle and put them into the microalgae.
Over the next month or so with good skimming and addition of mature live rock and macros into the refugium the microalgae dissapeared. All the while the main tank is growing coraline algae like crazy. No micro or macro at all.

I ran the lights in the fuge 24/7 for the first 8 months of the tanks operation and I now run them 12 on and 12 off in reverse daylight.

I still to this day have never seen any type of microalgae in my main tank. I do have two species of macro growing in my main tank and one of them is becoming a problem but still looks good.

I like using the refugium in the begining to SOAK up the nutrients given off by the curing process. Just give the refugium the advantage over your main tank as far as energy input like lighting etc... so it can assimilate the nutrients into something you can remove.

Also I recomend keeping your calcium up the whole time using what ever method you choose. I used a reactor.

Jeff

 

[CAT]

I would start the refugium right away. You don't have to hook it up to the display until you're ready. I started my fuge after my tank had been going for a year or so. When I thought the fuge was working well I hooked them up together.

hth

 

[dzhuo]

Hi Jeff Hood,
Here is what I got from you:

1. hook up everything including pump,lights,PS, etc and let it run for a couple of days so the salt can be dissolved completely and make sure all the equitments are running fine and the tank is not leaking.

2. Add live sand and live rock to both the main tank and the refu, aquascape the main tank and let the whole thing run for at least a few weeks. during this time, keep the light to minimum. For the refu, keep the light run 24/7. For the main tank, no light for the first few days, and then a few hours more each day.

3. Add a refu kid to the refu and let it run for another few weeks.

4. If everything is fine, start to add fish, coral, etc to the main tank.

Is this pretty much what you did to start your tank? Generally, are those proper steps to start a new tank? Any comments?

thanks!
david

 

[CraigLampe]

I also set up my refugium after about 14 months of main tank existence... I simply placed the second tank on top of the main tank (refugium is smaller) and a pump (802) pushes water up into it and it is plumbed to overflow into the main tank.

I immediately put some "live" sand from the main tank into it and also put whatever MacroAlgae I could grab into it...

I was amazed at how quickly it was teeming with Isopods and Amphipods!!

Now it is about 3 months old and unfortunately also has some bubble algae and Pest Anemones... though they are a minimal problem...