New 125 system - Refugium or not?

[MLVA123]

Hi everyone, nice to meet you! My name is Mike Lauderdale - I've been 'lurking' on this BB for a few weeks now, reading and absorbing all the great info. I have been an aquarist for years (off and on). My last active tanks were a 55 gal freshwater and a 29 gal marine way back in the late 80's. MAN, have things ever changed since then! My old 29 was the 'dead coral/UG filter' variety. Looking back, it was a miracle I had success with that tank! :lol: I've always felt the yearn to get back into it and so now I'm doing my homework to put up a 'new' marine system.

Since I'm a 'noob' reefer but have some experience, I will probably start with a FOWLR or maybe some easy corals, but I want to build the system with advanced reef in mind. That way, as my experience grows, I won't be wishing I had a larger tank, or have to take it down to drill it, etc. In a word, I want scalability!

I am leaning towards a 125 gal system with sump/wet-dry/skimmer. The two biggest LFS in town offer different opinions on the refugium. One says "why should you, it's not necessary and it's more trouble to maintain". The other says, "you'll get a more [chemically] stable system with it". From what I read here, the community is pretty much split on the topic. I know there are few easy Yes/No answers in this hobby, but I guess it doesn't hurt to ask, eh?

 

[Bleeding Blue]

Mike,

Wow it sounds like you really want to get things started right. Way to go. I wish you the best of luck with all of your new tanks.

As far as your fuge question, I think that it depends on what you want to keep, and how much space you have to keep it. A great place to start is by looking in the library here at rdo. It has a great section on different methods, and you will find much information about both the berlin and natural methods, which are the two generally accepted in the reefing community. There are also a number of great books out there, and I wouldn't be afraid to do a search on amazon to find some reefing books. Not only is the info vastly interesting, but it will get you started in the direction you want to go from the begginning. Lastly, take any advice you get from a lfs with a grain of salt. Many of the lfs owners want to offer you high priced products that just don't work. Do your research, and you will be rewarded in the future. Good luck.

Mike

 

[liquid]

Hi MLVA123 and

I would recommend the refugium/algal filter on reverse daylight cycling to help stabilize out pH. It's certainly not going to harm anything besides your electrical bill.

Also if you are starting out FOWLR I would recommend picking out fish that will "play nice" with the potential coral species that you would like to keep. For example: triggers would not be a good fish to place in a reef tank.

I'm not sure about using a wet/dry as most people that keep reef tanks omit this filter as it tends to increase the nitrates in one's tank. Most people find that as long as they have a DSB, a decent amount of liverock, a good skimmer, and occasionally run carbon in their systems that everything works well for them.

Also, when you get yoru 125, make sure that it's a drilled tank as opposed to using a hang-on overflow. I'd have it drilled so you can use two standpipes for redundancy.

hth

Shane

 

[Anonymous]

Hey when you say run carbon do you mean in any kind of filter? Because I have this old whisper HOB filter that would be perfect for that, i could place it on the tank every so often when i want a little extra mechanical filtration, but i don't really want to pay for a new HOT magnum ...

 

[ChrisRD]

Hwarang - that would work fine.

 

[liquid]

Yup, that's fine.

shane

 

[ChrisRD]

MLVA123 - I'll second what Shane said - IMO the refugium is a good idea.

 

[Anonymous]

Yes to the fuge, no to the wet/dry.

 

[Anonymous]

r33t, thx!

 

[eddi]

Mike,

Hi, my name is Eddi and I just recently resetup my 125 and I went through the same type of decisions you are now. I can tell you that I will never set up another tank without a refugium. And if you set up one, you do not need a wet/dry, just a sump.

I started cycling my refugium (30 gallon) three weeks before my main tank, then added different types of algae to it while my 125 was curing. I use a reverse cycle and no skimmer and I had minimal, and I do minimal, algae bloom in the 125. I have been very, very happy with the results and I actually quite enjoy watching all the different types of life in there, from copepods to worms to various types of shrimps.

I have a few pictures of my 125 at: http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/bc/ed...&.view=t&.done=http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/



Eddi

 

[ChrisRD]

Your tank looks great Eddi - nice job.