Refugium as a Feeder for DT

[Wippit]

Deep sand beds and seaweed refugiums will feed your tanks naturally. When setting up systems, focus on the bottom of the food chain. Establish micro inverts and fauna diversity before moving on to higher level inverts ( coral and fish ) . The biodiversity in the micro fauna and fana not only provide food but the also process waste (multiple nutrient pathways), "one mans poison is another mans food". Many natural reefers wait 6 months to a year before adding the top of the food chain.

Patrick

It may be kind of strange to start a thread with a quote from another, but this is a topic that I'd like to find out more about.

I have an empty non RR 120 that I was thinking about using for a refugium. John Gilbert was over the other day and gave me a lot of good advice about initial setup and system design. One of the things he mentioned was using the refugium as a "feeder" for the DT. I hadn't realized that this was possible, but am very intrigued by the idea.

Does anyone have something like this going? If so, can you post some details on it?

[Zarathustra2]

I'm pretty big on it, especially as my target fish includes a pair of mandarin dragonettes. I have this going on my 24g and am still in the process of setting it up on my 90 but already have a huge population of copepods ect. Your main goal is to set-up a predator free area that is condusive to macro-algae growth which in turn supports lots of micro-fauna (copepods, amphipods, mysis shrimp ect.) There are a few features that I have found very effective for this.

1. A 6" or so DSB of reasonably fine grain sand. After Dave (Prof from Epic Reef) supplied me with some Garf Grunge I used that as an upper layer and it was very effective in growing mysis. However, i did not get it fresh so could not say for the product's bio-diversity. Just that the medium itself on top of a very fine sand/mud substrate was really effective.

2. a 1-2" layer of mud. I like reefcleaners offering for the amazing amount of microfauna in it. The super-dense layer adds a slightly different environment than either fine sand or course sand. Also, the mud works very well when growing mangroves.

3. Live rock rubble - regardless of your refugium setup you will want some extra live rock rubble somewhere in the setup. I like the "copepod pile" idea where you get pretty small chunks of live rock and corral them together somehow into a tallish tube formation. No flow/light considerations are needed. It just gives the copepods a good place to live

4. Macro-algae and mangoves - If I only had 1 macroalgae it would be chaeto. Easy to grow with a bit of flow and light, works great, supports a large pod community. It is the magic bullet of refugiums and vegetative filters. What I have found though is that it will really only support a few species. You'll sometime see the bare bottom chaeto refugiums which are great for nutrient export but only create some pods and other foods. Also, chaeto doesn't provide a huge amount of phyto-plankton. For a food refugium you really want to bio-diversify. With a 120 you can really do that as well. Just plant different areas with different algae's and set them each up right. Put some ulva in an area with a crushed shell substrate and see lots of mysis grow in that area. In a sandy substrate put in some of your more decorative halimedia or "mermaid" macros. Set up a foam block with some nice mangrove pods in it, or plant them in a built up section with mud. The possibilities are endless. Just, every different bio-type you add in will give you a different set of foodstuffs for your critters.

Once my sump gets together the plan is to have the out put from the tank dump into a chamber that is half full of live rock rubble and half with chaeto. To the right of this is a diffusion plate with a darkened cryptic zone setup. Main waterflow goes to the left where the Deep Sand Bed sits with different macros planted. The pump on the way back splits off to a algae scrubber that dumps back into the first section and the other part of the return goes to the main tank. In the overflow of the main tank I have Mangrove pods on top of rock rubble that is stacked all the way up to where the durso pipe is taking in water.

[subsea]

Excellant post Zara.

I like simplicity in my refugiums. Because I am not interested in ascetics with my outside tanks (75 G on my south poarch) and two inground 150 gallon stock tanks. On my poarch tank, I use three 10 G rubbermaid containers in series. No protein skimmer with only a small amount of carbon use. I feed heavily when I am home. Differrent species of seaweed grow at different rates. In a very basic sense it is an automatic self regulating process. When the nutriant source is high the seaweed grows fast. When the nutriants are low, the seaweed does not grow but it stays healthy. The biodiversity amonsts the seaweed feeds the system. With this system I can leave for 28 days at a time. With automatic top off for evaporation, there are no ill effects when I leave the tanks unattended. The first container is the cyropt zone. The next two containers each has a different decrotive macro-algae (seaweed). Because chaeto is not very ediable, to fish or people, I choose not to use it anymore. However, it is the most forgiving and the least maintenance. I have a half dozen different seaweeds. My ultimate goal is maintaining Red Ogo for my home consumption. I like its taste straight out of the tank. The cultivare which I purchased from Indo Pacific Sea Farm, Gracilaria Parvispora, is well suited for in tank cultivation outdoors. At present, I have three outdoor systems which total about 400 gallons.

Hopefully, in March, when I host the ARC meeting, I can feed several recipees of Red Ogo.

Patrick

[Wippit]

Great posts!

There is one question I have: how do you get water from the feeder refugium into the DT? Can you use a pump or will that chop up too much of the micro-fauna?

[subsea]

I have had several large systems (75 to 150 gal refugiums). Some used gravity to feed grow-out tanks and some used pumps to feed display and multiple tanks. Both work well. Even if the centrifugal pumps injury the zooplankton, so what. The fish and corals can capture it easier. However, I have seen large pods go thru pump impellars with no ill affects observed.

Patrick