refugium and algea question

[UnseenTric]

Hello all, its been awhile since my last post. But the tank is going good for the most part. I have 2 questions that maybe some of you experienced reefers could help answer...

Refugium:
I have a 10 gallon refugium above my main tank about 8" from the ceiling on an extremely sturdy shelf (multiple bracing). This presents a problem when I need to clean it or get something out. I added a fuana kit from Inland recently and noticed a bit of a spike in the number aptaisa present. I was wondering if it would be a good Idea to get a small peppermint shrimp for the refugium? I know those aptasia are probably feasting on the critters up there as it is. What I am wondering is, if you think the shrimp will eat less then the booming aptasia population? It's a real pain to squirt them with kalk....any suggestions much appricated.

Main tank:
About 3 weeks ago I began to notice an algea bloom in my tank. Lots of green-turf 75%, 15% hair algea, and 10% of this spongy green stuff. I cut the feeding massively, (now feeding once every 3 days), and started doing 15% h20 changes weekly. Also cut the MH lights down an hour. The Algea appears to have slowed considerably but is ever present, probably about 35% rock coverage. I was wondering if anyone could suggest a critter or two to help in the process. I have about 50 Astrea and 10 turbos but they don't seem to be eating it. I take them off the glass and put them on the rockwork and the next morning I see them on the glass again. I was thinking a few emerald crabs, as a temporary solution untill my tank is established enough to support a tang. Any ideas/suggestions for critters? Even a good website would be great.
Thanks
Pete

[R1Bill]

Pete,

Maybe if you give us some more info about your tank like, age, water conditions, size, filtration, sand, rock, water changes, RO/DI, etc we may have some ideas for you.

Good Luck,

Bill

[tdwyatt]

Originally posted by UnseenTric
...I added a fuana kit from Inland (to my 10 gallon refugium)recently and noticed a bit of a spike in the number aptaisa present. I was wondering if it would be a good Idea to get a small peppermint shrimp for the refugium

Hey Pete!

It would be a great idea to add TWO peppermint shrimp, as they will stop the Aiptasia from seeding the main tank, and will also produce many broods of shrimp larvae that will feed the main tank as well.

Originally posted by UnseenTric
(I cut feedings and) cut the MH lights down an hour (to control the algae bloom). The Algae appears to have slowed considerably but is ever present, probably about 35% rock coverage. I was wondering if anyone could suggest a critter or two to help in the process...

Small emerald crabs (Mithrax spp. ) and the miscellaneous other janitorial spp of inverts will help a lot, but for the most part, something along the lines of a Yellow tang or a Foxface Rabbitfish (Signatus lo or similar spp....) will usually consume the algae down to the rock. If you have problematic algae that the fishes don't seem to be interested in, a Tuxedo urchin (Mespilia globulis) would be in order, and it will not bulldoze the tank. In its preference for green microalgae and in it's occasional "messy" consumption of coralline algae, it will clean the rock down to the aragonite, allowing for new colonization by coralline algae, improving your rock coverage and preventing future microalgae growth on those same locations. Might check the age of your bulbs if this is a recent outbreak and the bulbs are more than 8 to 10 months old...

Hope this helps.

[UnseenTric]

thanks tom!
The lights are only 6 weeks old, so I'm not worried about them. I was thinking about a tang, but I am trying to hold out as long as possible, I want to add a mandarin first.
Are you sure that the peps wont feed on the amphipods that I am trying to raise in there? That is really what I am most concerned about. I'd like to rid the refuge of aptasia but not at the expense of a reduced amphipod population
Cheers
Pete

[R1Bill]

Pete,

Letting the algea grow will provide a good habitat for the copopods to feed a mandarin Hope you have at least 100 lbs of live rock to support it once the algea is gone. A yellow tang will probably go very far in cleaning up your tank. And, if your snails are surviving, the tang should be ok.

Bill

[tdwyatt]

Originally posted by UnseenTric
Are you sure that the peps wont feed on the amphipods that I am trying to raise in there? That is really what I am most concerned about...

If the Lysmata are given the choice between scavenging and having to capture something, they will most often go for the scavenging. If you feed the refugium when you feed the tank, the shrimps will eat the added food (less energy spent to capture) and the stuff they don't eat will feed the benthos as well. The shrimp will require some feeding to be able to survive molting well. Most shrimps that die during molting do so because they do not have adequate nutritional supplies to be able to expend the energy to split their exoskeletons and then not pursue feeding opportunities during the period while their new exoskeletons harden. It would behoove you to feed your shrimps, and feeding them will reduce the pressure on your copopod/isopod populations.

On the mandarin, you might want to hold off for a bit if your tank is less than 8 or 9 months old (and has a fairly mature sandbed and large amounts of LR). The Mandarin Gobies are hard on copepod pops as well, and if the benthos is not mature, it may not be able to recover its copepod populations if the mandarin hits it too hard too early in its growth and development.

Good to see you back and posting!

[semajftw]

If you feed the refugium when you feed the tank,

Tom, is it always a good idea to feed a refugium? I would think that if you had a DSB in a refugium that you would need to feed it to keep the beneficial infauna fed and happy.

Do you agree, or am I missing something here?

-James

[Evergreen]

UnseenTric:
How dense is the macro in the refugium? The more plant life, the more copepods and the less chance a lot of them have of being caught by any potential shrimp.

[UnseenTric]

ohh theres plenty of macro in there (gracilliaria, grape caul., and "leafy" type algea. But then again its a only a 10 gallon tank, and if I was hungry shrimp I'd do some exploration and hunting
cheers.
pete

[cyberchef]

I had 6 peps in one of my refugiums, for tank food production, and they did great. I just gave the refugium a squirt of blender mush when I would feed the tank and they were happy. Also found that they bred more when there was less algae (calupewra) in the refugium... lol Unfortunately I lost the peps during the move and no one locally has any peps right now. Just waiting to replace them.

BTW Unseen, how is your pod population coming along?

[UnseenTric]

Well the first batch of amphipods from FloridaAquafarms I don't think made it....maybe I just didn't feed the refugium enough. Now since the Inland kit went it, the critter popultion is really starting to boom. A lot of little white specs (mysis, I believe) swim around and the occasional juvenile amphipod. The Amphipod pop I think might take a few more weeks.... How often did you see amphipods swimming around in your refugium during the day? And where they the large adults or just babies?
Id be interested to know....
Its hard for me to get up in the wee hours of the morning to check out the refugium.
Pete

[cyberchef]

Originally posted by UnseenTric
Now since the Inland kit went it, the critter popultion is really starting to boom. A lot of little white specs (mysis, I believe) swim around and the occasional juvenile amphipod. The Amphipod pop I think might take a few more weeks.... How often did you see amphipods swimming around in your refugium during the day? And where they the large adults or just babies?
Id be interested to know....

The white specs are probably copepods, but they could be mysis. My efugiums are full of copepods, and amphipods, lots of grammaris shrimp. Mine are out at all times of the day, lights on and lights off, looks like a city from an aireal view... lol I see both adults and babies all the time. The grammaris shrimp like/need algae in order to survive, it's the mainstay of their diet. They feed on the algae that's actually starting to die off and decompose, that's why I used Roti Rich for the first few weeks after I placed them in my holding/breeding tank (10 gallon and a 1/2 gallon plastic) while I was setting up the refugiums. I kept them in the 1/2 gallon [plastic tank for about 2 weeks and would put a few drops of roti rich in every day. I also added the roti rich to the refugium for the first few weeks after I added the grammaris to it. I need to order some more gracilaria for the refugium in the next few weeks, most of what I had is gone. Glad to hear your pods are taking off doing well. I also need to get some new peps for the refugium since I lost all of mine in the move, for some reason they didn't survive for the first hour in the container I usewd to move them... I had bought a bunch of new tupperware containers to use for all of the LS and only the peps had a problem. Unfortunately it took me 3 days before I could get the refugiums set back up, they were just in thier bookcase with the SB still in them and about 2" of SW. Right now nobody locally has any hopefully I can get up to The Fish Garden in newnan one of these days as they usually have them.

[tdwyatt]

Originally posted by semajftw
...is it always a good idea to feed a refugium? I would think that if you had a DSB in a refugium that you would need to feed it to keep the beneficial infauna fed and happy. Do you agree, or am I missing something here?

Well, Yes and no...

You want to keep the sand bed critters going, and that may require feeding, but it will depend on how you feed the main tank and how heavily you do feed it (and the refugium.). The idea is to have the refugium act as a biological filter, and if you feed the tank heavily with mush and the like, that will end up in the sump as a detritus trap. There, carbon (leftover food) and nitrogen in the form of lefover proteins (and foodin general) will be processed by the sandbed in both the tank and the sump. It is a matter of scale. If you are a light tank feeder, then it may be of benefit to feed the sump, otherwise, you're just adding more nuitrients to the soup. I feed my sump, but it is because I don't feed the fish much in the displays. In that manner, I feed the tanks more "packaged" foods (like shrimp larvae, isopods, copepods, etc) that don't pollute the water column. I also run mostly skimmerless, although I keep one running and turned all the way down (so that it keeps the water areated, produces very little skimmate.)

[UnseenTric]

Tom-
Where are you getting packaged isopods and copepods? I never heard of such a thing....

[tdwyatt]

Originally posted by UnseenTric
Tom-
Where are you getting packaged isopods and copepods? I never heard of such a thing....

sorry, you misinterpreted what I was saying, these creatures themselves are the nitrient packages, rather than having pulverized f;lesh or powdered flake type food, the isopods and copepods are alive, and packages of food that will not spoil and release their nutrition into the water column. This is what I meant by nutritional packages.

Sorry to have mislead you.