Help Regarding Refugium

[Soumya]

I am very new to marine,know a little bit about saltwater aquarium.Actually I am a hardcore freshwater planted hobbyist.I saw a refugium at a friend's place.I am very much interested in making one.I dont have any reef tank,would like to build only a refugium like Mr. Julian Sprung's.Saw the video of his refugium in youtube-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYN705Qu6_U
can anyone help me regarding the following-

1)what equipments and accessories should I must buy?
2)which substrate is to be used and what should be the thickness of it in my tank?my tank size is 27x18x18 cu. inch
3)which salt should I use?
4)what is the period of water change?
5)what can be the max temp of tank?in summer my other tank reaches to 29-30C
6)what should the spectrum of the light?
7)suggest some small size schooling fishes please.
8)what type of filter I can use?sump/canister/top filter?which one will be best?

please help :)

[billdogg]

Oh My.........

Go here - www.wetwebmedia.com - and start reading.

Spend plenty of time here as well. There is more than enough information already posted to keep you busy for days just learning the basics.

[Soumya]

oh...thanks,will surely go through.I meant salt to be its brand name,red sea or anything else!substrate I meant beach sand or anything.my friend told he changes water of his 6feeter reef once in a month or 2months even,my tank is much much smaller thus i asked about w/c!:beachbum:
anyways thanks.:)

[Ron Reefman]

You are asking to do something kind of unusual and starting with, "...kowning a little about saltwater aquariums." So what do you know? What are your basic ideas for this tank? The answers to most of your questions can vary widely based on who you ask. I use Instant Ocean salt. It's cheap and should work fine for you. Beach sand can work for you better than in a reef tank because you aren't looking clean or live sand (although seeding some live sand or at least a couple of live rocks would be a good idea). Water changes are properly based on size of you system, bio load, filtration (mechanical, biological and possibly enev chemically. 10-20% a month would be a reasonable starting point IMHO. As billdog said, do lots of research before you start. BTW, copying Julian's display refugium is like starting near the top of the spectrum.

I have a 180g reef with 2 attached tanks. There is an 85g 'anemone' display tank (with many anemones, 4 clowns, some feather dusters and some pretty macro algae) and a deep sandbed / macro algae refugium in my sump (130g+ sump and 45g of the sump is refugium).

We (reefer) mostly use refugiums as a biological filter system to remove nitrates and phosphates from the water that gets added to the water colum through feeding and critter waste. The algae, plants (including mangrove trees) and critters that live in the deep sand take in the nitrates and phosphates to grow and we remove these chemicals by trimming and removing some of the algae and plants as they grow.

If the refugium is the only saltwater tank in the system you'll have to add these chemicals in order to get tha algae and plants to grow. Not that that is hard to do, just making the point.

Hope that helps just a little.

[dzhuo]

I am very new to marine,know a little bit about saltwater aquarium


Welcome to salt water and RC Soumya!


1)what equipments and accessories should I must buy?


There is no strict requirement of what equipments you must buy in order to maintain a fuge and there are endless possibility of how people run theirs. Nearly all of them will work. Having said that, the purpose of a fuge is to provide a safe place for micro-fungas to live and multiply so having macro algae, sand and rocks are popular choices.


2)which substrate is to be used and what should be the thickness of it in my tank?my tank size is 27x18x18 cu. inch


This more or less depends on personally preference. Some people goes up to 6". Others 4" or 2". And yet others (such as myself) use no sand at all. The reason why I chose not to use any sand is because I want to be able to easily siphon out any debris during water change and I don't believe a tiny fuge will have enough surface area to provide any meaningful filtration capacity. As an alternative, I put a few pieces of LR in there which provide enough hiding place for the little critters.


3)which salt should I use?


This doesn't seem to have anything to do with fuge. :) Anyhow, nearly all major brand of salts will work. I personally use IO. RedSea, SeaChem, Reef Crystal, Tropic Marin, etc are all fine.


4)what is the period of water change?


This also depends largely on your bio-load. Most people try to do 10% water change weekly. I personally do 15% bi-weekly (or 30% monthly).


5)what can be the max temp of tank?in summer my other tank reaches to 29-30C


Although 86F is not the end of the world, I would look to keep it at or around 84F max. Is there a reason why your tank runs so hot? Do you have a glass tops? Have you consider using a few computer fans to increase evaporation (thus reducing heat)?


6)what should the spectrum of the light?


Anything from 14K to 20K is fine.


7)suggest some small size schooling fishes please.


There is no true schooling fish that I am aware of. The closest we have is probably chromise which isn't a true schooling fish. Most people also report aggression which result in the fish dieing one by one over time.


8)what type of filter I can use?sump/canister/top filter?which one will be best?

Skimmer is a popular choice and it's something I would suggest you looking into. If you have a sump, you shouldn't have any problem finding a good quality skimmer for relatively cheap. Culturing macro algae is also a popular filtration method in salt water. Canisters are generally not used (except if you mod it as a media reactor to run carbon or GFO). I am not sure what's a top filter.

Good luck with your tank!

[xCry0x]

Sounds like less of a refugium and more of a planted SW DT? The point of a refugium is to have a place where all the waste from your fish can be broken down and waste eating bacteria animals & plants can grow without having to fend off bacteria animal and plant eating fish.

By throwing schooling fish in the mix you are basically just making a nano FOWLR (fish only with live rock tank), not a refugium.

[Soumya]

@ Ron::Julian's refugium is like inspiration to me.I dose regularly nitrate,phosphate in my freshwater planted tank,there is no problem.
actually at first I thought of marine planted tank like these got from different sites-

http://s1095.photobucket.com/albums/i475/bloodyheart18/?action=view&current=260400_244950378854861_100000197034.jpg

http://media.photobucket.com/image/marine%20planted%20tank/plantbrain/DSCN0053.jpg

Later I saw how beautiful a refugium looks.the polyps stuck to the mangrove are looking simply awesome.I want to use mangrove,polyps,algaes etc like refugium and a do beautiful scape like a marine planted tank,that's something in between refugium and marine planted.

thanx a lot man.:bdaysmile:

[Soumya]

@dzhuo : I want to use substrate as it makes the tank to look far more natural,though it is my personal opinion!all my tanks are open top,In east India ,climate is very hot during summer,surrounding temp reaches to 34-38C.cpu fan is not much effective as humidity is also very high,though I use them.cpu fans are able to lower the temp only by max 2 to 3 C.I use ice packs in every 2 hr after 11am when I am in home.but when I am not,bigger prob arises,temp reaches to 31-31.5C.in the rest of the year other than 4 months of summer there is not much prob to keep the temp within 27C using only CPU fans,

I saw chromise at my friend's place,really a beautiful fish.isn't there any fish like freshwater's cardinal tetra,puntius denisonii or these type of small schooling fishes?
top filter is something like this,one powerhead pump in the water that pumps the water though a pipe that meets a chamber ,where one can keep different types of filter media along with activated carbon.
http://i00.i.aliimg.com/photo/v0/290639250/Aquarium_Top_Filter_RS_268A_.jpg

[Soumya]

the chamber is kept over the tank,outside water,only the powerhead inside.

[Soumya]

@xCry0x: ya,that is somewhat in between SW planted and refugium but not at all FOWLR.As far as I heard,in FOWLR,the main focal point is the LR.but mine is not that.focal point is definitely the mangrove.
thanks :)

[Birdee]

I am very new to marine,know a little bit about saltwater aquarium.Actually I am a hardcore freshwater planted hobbyist.I saw a refugium at a friend's place.I am very much interested in making one.I dont have any reef tank,would like to build only a refugium like Mr. Julian Sprung's.Saw the video of his refugium in youtube-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYN705Qu6_U
can anyone help me regarding the following-

1)what equipments and accessories should I must buy?
2)which substrate is to be used and what should be the thickness of it in my tank?my tank size is 27x18x18 cu. inch
3)which salt should I use?
4)what is the period of water change?
5)what can be the max temp of tank?in summer my other tank reaches to 29-30C
6)what should the spectrum of the light?
7)suggest some small size schooling fishes please.
8)what type of filter I can use?sump/canister/top filter?which one will be best?

please help :)

Some things to keep in mind:
The display refugium in the video is a "refugium" because it is running on the same filtration system as that big tank next to it.
If your tank will not be run in conjunction with another tank it will not be a "refugium" and will need LiveRock of it's own. Since this tank is connected to the larger tank full of LR it is gaining the benefits of LR without LR taking up space in it.
In essence if you want this as a stand alone main display then you are creating a planted tank with a mix of macro algaes, mangrove, soft corals/polyps, and fish.
It would work to add the LR to the middle of the tank and achieve a similar look by having the Mangrove grow over/through the rock perhaps. But I don't think that that exact setup would function properly as it stands with no LR. Someone else here may be able to speak further to this issue...
Fresh water filtration, such as you have pictured above, in not beneficial for SW... and Nitrate and Phos should not be added ever. SW is MUCH different that fresh!

IMO you won't have a very good salt water experience unless you do a lot of research into the needs of each of the elements you see in the display in the video that you would like to emulate.
I someone were to just give you a list with X substrate and depth, X brand salt mix, X temp, X light, X fish, and X filter then it would probably not go well. Unlike Freshwater there is a pretty good waiting period before adding many things to a tank.
I can tell you what I SEE in that display... but you can see it too.

In this case I think that research will be your best friend. A site like liveaquaria.com might help you a good deal in identifying the tank inhabitants, and in forming an idea of what you would prefer yourself. There are lots of very small, peaceful, fish that could be added to such a display. They certainly couldn't all be listed here....
One step at a time! :wave:

[dzhuo]

@dzhuo : I want to use substrate as it makes the tank to look far more natural


I think so too. My previous 2 tanks are all bare bottom (without sand) and were very successful. My current tank, however, has a shallow sand bed (.5") just for the look.


In east India ,climate is very hot during summer,surrounding temp reaches to 34-38C.cpu fan is not much effective as humidity is also very high


I see. One little trick I use dealing with really high temp is to run the light cycle at night. For example, during the really hot summer time, my lights are on from 5pm to 11pm which is much cooler and this alone was able to drop the max temp down a couple degrees. This is something you can consider and along with a few computer fans might be enough to keep the temp below or around ~84F.


I saw chromise at my friend's place,really a beautiful fish.isn't there any fish like freshwater's cardinal tetra,puntius denisonii or these type of small schooling fishes?


Unfortunately, not that I am aware of. There is no true schooling fish readily available and are easy to keep. Besides the chromis, the closest is the family of Apogon such as the Apogon Parvulus also known as the red spot cardinal:

http://glassbox-design.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/red-dot-cardinals.jpg

This fish will form a tight group very similar to a true schooling behavior and is small. But they are not an easy fish to keep as they are poor shipper and most end up dieing before the 1 year mark.


top filter is something like this,one powerhead pump in the water that pumps the water though a pipe that meets a chamber ,where one can keep different types of filter media along with activated carbon.


If you are planning to just run carbon or other media, a simple media reactor is normally cheaper and easier to work with.

[Soumya]

@ bridee and dzhuo:: thanx a lot...really very helpful inputs...again thanx...I think I must have to gain more and more knowledge before doing all of these.
@bridee:I am exactly thinking of the scape you told using LR.
thank you guys...you are awesome :bounce2: