Deep sand bed in a HOB refugium?

[Sgt Jonny Cat]

I'm going a little crazy. I want to add a HOB refugium tomy 55 gallon FOWLR as I plan on growing corals soon. Everywhere I look I see debates on this subject. Does anyone have any oppinion on weather or not I should put sand in my HOB refugium?

I know I want to put some live rock and Chaeto in there but what about sand?!

I have live rock live sand and a HOB skimmer and canister. I plan on getting rid of the canister once I get the HOB refugium...

[thegrun]

There usually isn't a lot of room in a HOB refugium, so I wouldn't waste the space with a DSB.

[masonicman]

I have an HOB refugium and I have about 2 inches of sand, 2 small pod hotels and cheato in mine. I made mine out of an Aqua clear 110 filter. I also have large nas snails and two small clown Gobies in it. If they are still alive. Have not checked in awhile.

[jgiannini]

I have a CPR aquafuge2 and have about 4 inches of sand in there plus a couple pieces of LR....works well...had a hard time with chaeto though since not enough water movement...

[jerseygurl]

There's really no right answer just opinion. You're putting on a fuge so you can grow macros right? A DSB has no effect on that either way. But don't forget, the more sand you have the more sand you have to keep clean.

[masonicman]

Had a sand sifting goby in it at one point to keep the sand clean but it kept my water cloudy. The fuge water was returning to the DT real cloudy. Out it came.

[Sugar Magnolia]

A DSB in that small of an area will have absolutely no benefit on the system. When I ran a CPR fuge on the back of my tank I just went bare bottom and chaeto. You'll be amazed how much detritus gets trapped in there.

[Secondsbest]

There's really no right answer just opinion. You're putting on a fuge so you can grow macros right? A DSB has no effect on that either way. But don't forget, the more sand you have the more sand you have to keep clean.

I love my DSB, but I have to concure here. If the hob is packed with live rock, how fun is it going to be to suck of the surface detritus of your DSB?

[shermanator]

With the size of the HOB Aquafuge, you are not going to get much of any effect from having a sand bed of any sort (at least in my experience with the Aquafuge).

Keep in mind, even the large is small compared to the DT (5 gallon is the size of the large) and VERY small compared to traditional fuges you hear about. Thus, any nutrient export will be minimal, at best.

The HOB fuge is excellent for pod production. If you only want nutrient export, I would save your money and buy some reactors (biopellet and/or GFO). Even the amount of chaeto you can grow in the Aquafuge is quite minimal. The handful starter you buy will fill it up and will probably already be too big to tumble (which seems to be best for chaeto growth).

[masonicman]

Only thing I can confirm is that I had high nitrates and when I add my HOB as described above. My nitrates dropped tremendously. The cheato does not tumble in it but it definitely grows fast.