**New to the Fuge** stocking?

[60gal reef guy]

I'm doing my first fuge for my 125gal. The fuge will be a section of a 40gal breeder that's my sump/fuge. I was just wondering what most people are going with these days? Pics? I've heard of the mud bottom? 2" Sand bottom? Cheto? Few pounds of live rock? Just wondering what most are doing

[Kyle918]

How large will the refugiium be? I would stay away from mud as over time it becomes and more and more of a problem. The sand is a better idea but again, there are much more affective ways to handle nitrate export. To be effective, you'd need at least 4-6 inches, with 6 really being preferable, to even begin to be effective at nitrate export and even then it takes time for anaerobic bacteria to populate.

Personally, I would go with a bare bottom fuge with porous rock rubble and cheato. This will be easier to clean. Since it is bare bottom you can also place say a bio pellet reactor, etc. really the only reason I utilize one is to gain more water volume and to bread pods else I wouldn't bother with it. I would build an algae scrubber instead.

[Kyle918]

I actually retract that last statement about the algae scrubber (I really hadn't done much reading into it until now). But like I said prior, there are better forms of nutrient export. Just do some searching in the forums.

[Duvallj]

I've done mangroves/ chaeto in the past. I like using chaeto better as pods seem to also like to chill in the tangled mass. I never really experienced any growth in the mangroves.
I would stay away from any macro algaes that can go asexual and bomb the tank.
A fun idea I've seen some people throw around is xiena as a possible nutrient export. I don't think it'll be as effective as others, but meh, something to look into.