Above tank refugium inhabitants?

[Motherboard]

Here's the plan:

A 50g refugium on top of a 225g reef tank on top of a 50g sump/refugium.

The main tank and sump inhabitants are pretty generic: corals, inverts and fish in the main with a caulerpa/mud/dsb sump for filtration. Pretty standard, nothing special.

My question is what should I put in the above tank fuge? I want it to be a breeding ground for plankton AND (here's the hard part) the tank is going upstairs in my bedroom so it will need to be visually appealing as well.

Any ideas?

Thx

Tony

[bertoni]

[welcome]

Well, I think many macroalgae are attractive. Halimeda, many of the Caulerpa species, Chaetomorpha, and some of the more unusual ones might be interesting, if you're planning on lighting the refugium. With some intense light and circulation, Gracilaria might be another possibility.

A few chunk of live rock or a layer of live rock rubble might be useful for mysid shrimp, etc, habitat.

Some snails to keep the tank walls clean would be useful, too.

[thor32766]

yeah throw a few rocks in there and a must to me to have in a ref is chaeto!!!!

[Motherboard]

Thx for the info, but maybe I worded the question or description wrong.

The upper tank is basically another "show" tank. The primary purpose will be to breed plankton for a gravity feed back into the main tank. All the filtration will be concetrated in the below main tank sump/refugium.

I've seen a caulerpa/cheato tank at my LFS that frankly tooked life ___, but maybe it didn't have the microalgae eaters like snails and crustaceans.

So I guess the new question is, would you still recommend caulerpa/cheato in a tank meant to primarily for food production for the main tank?

The LR and LS bed are a natural for any salt tank. I wouldn't suggest anyone not have either of those, and I haven't ever even done a salt tank. I'm not trying to be a no it all, but I haven't read anything that would contradict either being beneficial for any tank.

Again thx for the info.

Tony

[FishMann]

Ive always toyed with the idea of putting a purple lobster in one. But i have never had the chance to do so. Id recommend that. A 50g would be perfect, maybe a little big but hey, it be cool and a change from the fish scene.

Im currently working on setting up a 10g refugium for my 10g nano. I think im going to put a Ophiomastix variabilis brittlestar in the fuge. The store has a cool one that i was planning on putting it in thr display but didnt want to risk my goby's life.

[bertoni]

Well, the macroalgae make good habitat and probably food for a fair number of animals. Hard to say. The live sand might help a bit, but for growing more mysid shrimp, etc, live rock rubble might do better.

[Motherboard]

ok, so here's the picture I'm getting:

Macroalgae (caulerpa/cheato/both) with mysis shrimp, a bit of Live Rock, Live Rubble bed for the shrimp and a small clean-up crew. Maybe even a purple lobster, maybe.

Would it be too much to have some kind of fish in there, or would that be strecthing the idea of the plankton brood fuge?

I doubt I could get any sustained phytoplankton growth unless I had an almost none existant water flow through the tank, correct?

Any other ideas that might work? Has anyone ever tried this kind of setup with success?

Basically I'm trying to mimic the natural environment as much as possible, and although I'm not trying to skimp on the amount of work necessary, I think it would be beneficial in the long run, especially if I were to go on an extended vacation (3wks+) or be unable to feed for whatever reason for an extended period.

Thx for the help guys

Tony

[bertoni]

You won't be able to grow much phytoplankton under normal circumstances, so I'd suggest concentrating on zooplankton. If you put a fish in the tank, it'll probably trim the zooplankton a lot.

[FishMann]

Not sure why this wasnt my first thought, but i thought of this today.

I know of a couple people who keep seahorses and/or pipefish in their refugium. Just make sure you you know the proper care.

no i wanst thinking of you (sorry), i work at lfs so when i saw the seahorses it came to me.

[Motherboard]

Man FishMann I was hoping someone would be thinking of me. But, alas, only my wife thinks of me most of the time. And mybe my 2 yr old daughter when I come home from work but that's about it.

I've thought about the seahorses, but I've heard they are REALLY hard to take care of. Although it won't be my first reef tank, I'm getting ready to start a 50 gal, I won't say that I'm an expert fish caretaker, and for the price of horses it's a bit out of my scale.

BTW I just went filterless on my 75 gal FW tank. The only reason I'm running the hang on back filter is cause I have some terrestrial ivy in there that I want to have a good water flow. I just took the filters out today so I'll have to watch the water params for a bit just to make sure I don't get an ammonia spike. I don't expect I will cause I have lots of plants but ya never know.

Thx

Tony

[Motherboard]

Just an update on the FW tank. I had to put the filters back in, not because of any spikes, but because the tank looked like butt after just a few hours. I don't think I'll need the carbon, but I'm keeping the cartridges just for the mechanical part of the filtration. That really cleaned up the tank quick, like < 1hr, after putting the filter back in. I know that I can go without the filter for denitrification and all but I'm just not liking the "cloudy" water that not having at least filter floss creates.