Do you really need sand in your fuge?

[dannieboiz]

I just filled my 100g yesterday, I have 2.5" of sand in the display.... I have a 40g fuge give or take. Was going to put 5 or 6" of sand in the sump but not sure if it's neccassary. Any pros and cons of having sands in your sump?

[TekCat]

Barebottom fuge will work fine, especially for cleaning accumulated in the fuge detrius. Having said that, sand may be required in the fuge if you for example have macro algae that needs to be "planted", or some life organisms that need sand. In that case you can put a cuke and some nassarius snails to keep it clean. Just my opinion.

[Teremei]

Well after having a 5g hang on fuge for 1 year. I decided my fuge will be BB. Why? Becasue there is so much "grey" stuff I think this is the "unproccessed ditritus" and it's hard to clean up with so much sand.

I'm setting up a simular size too. Just have live rock rubble on the bottom instead and macro on top. The more places for pods to breed the better.

Does anybody worry about sucking up and killing so many pods when you vacum the ditritus gunk from the bottom of the refugium? Would rock rubble instead of sand limit the stuff settling? opps just thought of something. Since it's going to be an under tank fuge just use a filter sock so that stuff doesn't even get into the fuge.

[ledford1]

I run mine BB with just LR and some macro algae. Snails make their way from the DT to the sump area and help out down there also.

[dannieboiz]

I'll have some cheato in the sump and I have lots of LR that I can put in there.

I had 4" of sand in my sump before Tank was healthy for the entire time until last night when I tore it down for the move. 30x15 fuge area would take quite a bit of sand to achieve even 4".

[TippyToeX]

I have no sand in my refugium. I think it makes harvesting and cleanup much more easy.