55 gallon fuge

[Cuttlefish]

Actually its just another tank to keep stuff, using the same water as the MT. Its been up for about a week. Needed to get it up when the Copperband came, after he picked the rock clean of all small critters he started layin into my Dusters.

Eventually i plan to move cheato and caluerpa to a Fiji Mud section section on the right. For now that chamber just holds some eggcrate panels from the old scrubber box cuz, why not its just surface area. The panels will make for an easy harvest when i remove and clean em. The plant fuge will have my two 24 inch inch T5 strips, one will have 1 6700k and 1 Actinic, the other will have 1 6700k and 1 10k. Just for the hell of it i'll throw in all 3 spectrums and put em on a timer, off-setting the daylight fixture to 2 hours late, 2 hours early to simulate dawn n dusk. It wont be just a weed/pod farm for long, I'd like to grow a variety of macro species in there. This section would also be running opposite of the MT and left section.. keeps the PH stable throughout the day. I heard that was a good thing lol

The left chamber will eventually be a "Rock Fuge". Not sure if that term exists but it does now :P. By rock fuge i just mean an area free of Copperband predation. I enjoyed all those little organisms so i'd like to try to preserve a couple pieces of raw rock in there. I was gonna use a 150w 20k Halide for it.

Also very soon im going to asthetically face these tanks with some kind of nice velvet curtain or something. The curtain rod for it will be mounted to the wall right where the stand and tank meet, then extend out and around with the curtain hanging down concealing the area underneath. Im probably going to do the same thing around the tank itself so it can conceal the light while the MT next to it is during its night phase. Need to also put an opaque divider between the two sections.

[Elegance Coral]

Go to image shack or photo bucket. Load your pic's there, then copy and paste them here using the img tang.

[Cuttlefish]

Originally Posted by Elegance Coral

Go to image shack or photo bucket. Load your pic's there, then copy and paste them here using the img tang.

Ok ill do that, thank you Elegance. For now heres a link to the album i just made..

http://www.thereeftank.com/forums/album.php?albumid=219

[Cuttlefish]

lol this thread got buried pretty quick. Thats ok i was really making it as a way to outline my goals for the thing and update it as i get a chance to add to it. At least i know how to post pics now

[quader94]

was that tank a 75 or some similar 4 foot tank before and you put a piece of glass in the middle?

[Cuttlefish]

Yah. Just ur basic baffle there :P. A friend owns a glass biz and asked me to let him do it. Wouldve prefer the baffles a lil closer and the hole drilled higher but im happy with the job.. saves me from doin it

55 gal btw

[quader94]

looks good

[Cuttlefish]

y thank u sir. It'll be a critter tank ya know. Ocean sillyasses will find a safe home in these chambers and will be free of the threat of being feasted on alive. Now new reasons to spend $ lol. Stocking this and the MT for that matter will be a long gradual process. But the steady additions is what'll keep it fun for a long time

Heh, just dawned on me it Saturday night and im at my lappy yackin about my fugetorium :P
thats ok, i love this stuff and besides, I pinched a nerve in my neck at the gym today n cant even move anyway.

[quader94]

see you have all that eggcrate you could build a rack for it!

[Cuttlefish]

Originally Posted by quader94

see you have all that eggcrate you could build a rack for it!

That is true homie. But then again a huge panel of the stuff only costs $10 or so at Home Depot so I think i can swing it. Youre quite correct my friend and an estute observation at that. Those panels just look silly in there and they were meant to be temporary anyway. Just an easy algae harvest. So yes! Why not use the things for a frag shelf?!

[quader94]

do it

[Cuttlefish]

Well I did the first service to the refugium the other day. I wrote down what I did to record and make adjustments if needed to eventually get the most time efficent and effective maintenance routine down. If it helps anyone cool, if anyone has any other fuge service methods would love to hear em..

" did the first bi-weekly fuge service. What I wound up doing was..

Shutdown supply pump and anything else in the refugium.

Removed eggcrate panels I was using as surface area for turf to grow.

Removed mound of cheato and coral skeletons that the grape caluerpa had rooted itself on. It made for a very easy collection. I did it gently as to keep as many pods in there as possible. I put all macro and rock in a small bin and covered it all with fuge water, put an air diffuser in there for aeration.

Scrubbed off front panel of all turf. Many man pods were hurled into the water column so if they wanna live another day they better find another glass panel fast. Maybe next time i'll clean off other panels, not sure yet.
Let all algae settle to the floor. This took about 90 mins or so.

I then came along with a thin siphon hose and taped the last 18 inches of the hose to an algae scrubber stick for control. Siphoned off the BB section's floor - adios nutrients n crap, including a good amount of pods. They are gonna have to be casualtys for the cause, for they are laying atop my front lawn right now. After I fill a bucket with waste water I just dump it in my washing machine. The fish room is in the basement so I set it to spin cycle and it pumps it outside for me. Has saved me many a climb up the stairs with 40lbs of water. I did this with 25 gallons, 5 buckets.

Brought my 5 jugs of Ro water downstairs and started mixing up the Reef Crystals. The 4.4 gal jugs you get with the live sea water, i think its called nutri-water or something, they worked worked great. You just add the salt, cap it and twist the hell out of it for a fast mix. Anyway I started a couple siphon lines into my sump, usually empties out one of those jugs in around 30 mins for a slow addition. If i had bought Tropic Marin PR (another great salt) I would have done this process with 6 buckets as the TM salts come in 34 gallon boxes.

Stirred up the sand, replaced macro and rock, dumped remaining water into fuge. It was pretty clean water and there was baby brittle stars and all kindsa stuff that crawled out, so I added it back.

Thats is for this service. Got my water change done and cleaned the fuge. I think i can handle doin this twice a month, not too bad. Time will tell wat this maintenance method does over the long haul. In conclusion alot of problematic stuff was exported and it seems that a healthy majority of pods and other life remained unphased. I will post some before and afters tomorrow when i have more time. The MT too. "

Thats what i recorded after the harvest. Gonna upload some new pics now..

[Reeftanker3295]

Yes pictures! haha it looks really nice, why didnt you use the light diffusers as frag racks?

[Cuttlefish]

New shots of the refugium, lil different after 3 weeks..

Added cheato and grape caluerpa day after fuge was up and running. Macro algae on right side has been in there 1 day. Barely survived the 2 day UPS journey from Fla but it looks like its on the rebound. Just in time for the seahorses

Oh ya and Carib Sea mud was added 12 hours before arrival of the macro. Sucked out most of the water in that section before I added the mud and waited for a couple hours to let it settle. Then very slowly turned supply back on. It really helped to minimize the cloudiness cuz the directions on the carib sea mud say to let it settle for 48 hours before you turn pumps back on.

Also added some of the Live Fiji Mud by Walt Smith. Just a few table spoons before I turned pumps on. The stuff smelled a little iffy and was debating on whether or not I should put any in at all. Skimmer in main sump went into high gear for a little while but as of now nothing out of the usual. Water crystal clear and all life seems happy, in fact cocoworm start pulsing for first time, I dont know if that coincidence. Water parameters in check. Will add one more carton of Mud and mix more Fiji with it.

Anyway heres some pics.





Went down to the south shore today with g/f and convinced her to help me try and catch some cool stuff for the fuge. Didnt get any tropicals but got 6-8 seahorses, and juvenile Lookdown, some pipefish and a few local species.





This guy is actually pregnant




Man i gotta sleep.. will post more tomorrow.

Need advice on keeping these babys alive. He has actually givin birth to a few already and they are swimming around the tank. Need to get them some live plankton or something... any suggestions on baby SH food?

[fihsboy]

Baby brine. Hatch them and just feed the heck out of the tank. They will eat them up.