Refuge noob advice needed.

[ChrisMiddleton]

Hi I just got into reef aquariums a few months ago and set up my own. I have a 46 gallon bowfront and am getting ready to set up a small 10 gallon refuge.

I was woundering what are some of the easiest marine Algeas to grow that remove some of the bad things in the water without posing a threat to my main tank.

I was thinking if my refuge grows things well I could put some of these plants in my main tank. Is this a bad idea? All I have in my tank is 60 pounds of live rock a Pair of Tomato clowns and a Sally Lightfoot.

Do marine plants mainly require light or the nuitrients in the water?

What is the point of having bio balls after the refuge?

Im a noob to this stuff and would like a good explination and any recommendations yall have.

[hmott]

let me explain it as I know it. However I don't have a reef tank, I have a macro/sea grass tank.

Basically people with reef tanks, mean lots of corals, generally don't do macros in the display.
The lighting needed for the corals is generally enough lighting to cause the macro's to outgrow/overgrow the corals. This keeps them from having macro's in the main tank. There are some very nice macro's that don't grow very fast that could be used, but it seems most do not use them.

Generally people seem to keep, and in this order I believe, cheatomorpha (cheato - a green stringy algae that isn't known to go sexual), caulerpa prolifera (a fast growing very hardy caulerpa that looks a bit like grass), and razor caulerpa (another fast growing caulerpa that looks like a serated knife edged grass). The down side to the caulerpa's is they can go sexual, altough there seem to be ways to reduce the possiblity.

I believe most people would suggest going with cheato as a refuge algae but I don't think you would want it in a display, its not very interesting to look at. I currently have all three, and keep both the caulerpa's along with many many more algae's in my display.

I'm pretty sure that any algae is going to use nutrients from the water column, but if your nutrients are high you should stay away from the calcifying algaes like halimeda, shaving brush, ect.

I'm still leaving about macro's so keep an eye out for others oppinions

[Phoneguy982]

Just a question...What is the "sexual" deal? Is this bad? What does it mean?

[sjvl51]

Phoneguy, here is a thread that describes sexual - http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=400960

Chris, here is a thread on different types of macro algae and comments about them - http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=349241

Macro algae require food and light to grow. The more light, the better most of them like it. Some people use their old MH bulbs - others use the Home Depot bulb from here - http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=313318 As for food, they use nitrates and phosphates that are in your water column. Here is an article on iron and macro algae - http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/aug2002/chem.htm

IMO bioballs do not belong in a reef tank anywhere in the system. They are known to convert ammonia to nitrites/nitrates faster than the system can cope with resulting in high readings.

Some people do add macro algae to the display tank. Like hmott said, it is usually avoided because the macro algae can be almost impossible to completely remove/control in your display tank.

Vickie