refugium

[jakleen]

hello :
my name is jakleen. i have a 90 gal. with some mushroom and buttons. i have a large fluval filter and a multi 1000 aqua medic protein skimmer i have a aqua clear in the back . there is about 150+lb live rock. i want to convert the aqua clear to a refugium. there is no room at the bottom since i have another tank and the fluval . several years back i read in one of the "fish magazines" that you can convert the aqua clear to a refugium ,but i have lost the article. all this is because i want to put a tank raised mandarin fish in the tank,but i want to get the "bugs" going so my mandarin will have a good supply of food.

the bottom tank is a 20 gal. that i have partitioned. in the small part i have 3 ceriantus , i had them in smaller tank for 3 years. couple of weeks ago i transferred them in to this tank. the larger part of the tank i have a baby antenata lion fish with some live rock. the tank has a protein skimmer and 2 aqua clear filter. he ate some guppies in the store ,but he refuses to eat mysis soaked in garlic. can some one let me know how i can wean him from live food. in the past my fuzzy dwarf's were eating pellets and frozen. this one is very fussy.

thanks in advance. see you all next sunday.

 

[Master Shake]

turning a aqua clear into a refugium will not really give you the bugs you need for a mandarin. Chances are if your tank has been up for a long time there are a lot of copepods in there and you just dont know it. If you still want to turn it into a refugium get some eggcrate to block a exit of the filter, get a small light for over it and just put some culerpa or some other kind if plant in it. Copepods need a substrate and rocks to hide in so a aqua clear is way to small if you would use the tank under it as a sumb that would be great. and if you still want more copepods look up reef nutrition, they sell bottled live tiggerpods guaranteed 2000 to 4000 per bottle. I know a store Total Aquariums i lynbrook has them, if you are too far just go to reef nutritions website and look up a store near you.

 

[kenske]

Here's a link to to pretty good instructions and pics:
http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=192628

However, i did not see any mods to reduce the flow (unless i missed it). You can either shorten the blades of the impeller and/or remove the round plastic thingie(i know it's not a real word) between the u-tube and the impeller. I have done both in order to reduce the flow enough for my taste.

 

[jakleen]

thanks for the info. jakleen