Need refugium advice

[iseeweed]

Hello, I am looking for some advice on a refugium. I am planning on growing mostly sps in my 75g. I am using a 20 long for a sump, with a coralife 125 skimmer(kinda junky but Im already using it my tank that I will be taking down). I plan on getting a better skimmer when I can afford. My main display will be bare bottom with 100 pounds of dry coral and the remaining live rock(30-40 pounds) from my old tank. For lighting I have 2, 250w pendants w 14k bulbs and plan on getting some t-5 strips just for a little more. I will dose with Two Part Solutions program until I can afford a reactor.
My main question is what should I put in the refugium. I have an extra 20 tall tank(used to be my old sump) that I can use. I plan on drilling an overflow and splitting my main return to feed it(950gph main return pump) Should it have a sand bed and how thick? how much flow will it need and what kind of maco-algae should I grow that will be best for nitrates? What kind of lighting will it need?
Sorry for all the questions, I just don't know much about refugiums

 

[Ben1]

The best algae is Cheato and if I was you I would add a RDSB to the fuge so I could remove it if I wanted with out taking the whole fuge off line. You could lite it with a couple of PC's or the like and it would be fine.

GL

 

[iseeweed]

RDSB-R??D?? sand bed

 

[ChrisRD]

RDSB = remote deep sand bed

 

[iseeweed]

How deep should the sand bed be on a 20g refugium?

 

[iseeweed]

Where can I get some cheato?? I looked at several online stores with no luck.

 

[bhanson]

There are many places that sell macro algae. I have gotten some off of ebay and I have bought from inlandaquatics.com and liveaquatix.com.

 

[Ben1]

I am sure a member here can USPS you a sandwich bagful for a small charge to cover the shipping people are constantly cutting the stuff back in the fuge and throw it away. I would do it if I had some but dont think anyone would mind if you started a thread in the general forum asking for some.

If you go with the sandbed right in the tank a few inchs would be fine. I perfer a mixture of Oolite and sp. seafloor grade sized sand from caribsea.

With a RDSB you could remove it down the line with out removing the whole fuge from the system. It can be as simple as a bucket of sand in the fuge as long as the top of the bucket is below the water. In the case of doing it that way use fill the bucket with sand most the way up. You can use whatever plastic one you have around, like a cut gallon milk jug or make one that fits nicely in your sump from some acrylic sheeting and weld-on glue.

GL what ever you do

 

[iseeweed]

Good idea with the plastic bucket. How often should the sand bed be changed and how do you know when to change it? Nitrates spike?

 

[Ben1]

Well the only reason a sandbed would need changing is if it was collecting a large amount of detritus in it. You could at that point just rinse it with fresh salt water to get it cleaned up and then put it back in. Or if you didnt care about waiting for it to recycle you could just replace it with fresh sand, but shouldnt need to for a long time.

 

[Anonymous]

Where can I get some cheato?? I looked at several online stores with no luck.

Look in the For sale forum on this website.