Refugium Help

[Special_Ed]

In the process of upgrading to a 75gl rr from a 55. Purchased a CPR fuge and looking to run macro algae and gravel in it. What type of maintenance regimine is required in a fuge of this type? How do I know when to "harvest" the macro? LFS gave me 3 types to begin with. Not sure of the names but one looks like suction cups, one looks like tiny grapes, and the other is stringy and balled up (as I said I am kind of ignorant to fuges) I always thought they were set it and forget it but I am reading otherwise.

[jb61264]

Personally, I would only run the "stringy and balled up" stuff as that is most likely chaeto. There really isn't a "need" to run more than one type of macroalgae and the other ones (which sound like caluerpa) can be troublesome IMO...because users have reported caluerpa going "sexual" and introducing a lot of unnecessary crap into your tank. People will say you can circumvent that by running lights on your fuge 24/7, but why?...all you really need to do is use the chaeto...it is a really good nutrient export macroalgae.

As far as maintenance...just trim it back every now and then by pulling some of it out and discarding. I find that I need to do this about every month or so but it varies depending on your growth rate really...you will know when its getting time to pull some out.

[spleify]

I agree that sticking with just the chaeto is likely your best bet. I trim mine when it starts to out grow its area, which is weekly. I trim out enough to leave soem more grow out room, then I turn the whole wad over and wait till next week and do it again.

HTH

Good luck

[reidcrandall]

I would agree. Just run chaeto. I just trim it back when it gets unruly. It grows at different rates for me, based on how the nutrients in the tank are. Faster when they are more. Therefore, I don't have a set time frame that I harvest it in.