H.O.T. Refugiums

[trea]

Hi everyone,

I have some questions about those refugiums that one can hang on the tank.
1) When an HOT refugium is setup, can you use the water from your maintank? Should you have a seperate light for it.

2) Should a person have a skimmer in the refugium?

3) I have read that people grow certain types of algae to combat nuisance algae. When you have a good amount in you refugium, do you just drop in the main tank? How does one goes about breeding those pods(critters) for the tank?

Any help appreciated.

Thanks,

Trea718

[Geoff]

1) most of the HOB refugiums have a minor pump to supply water to it and the overflow flows back into the tank.

2) no, the skimmer for the main tank will also skimm this.

3) this is where i start to have problems with what a refugium is for. i will play nice though. the object is to have the macro algae uptake the nutrients that the nuisance algae would need first. when the algae get big this is the export part of what the refugium does. the object is to just toss the overgrowth. if you feed it back to the tank than you are putting the bound nutrients back into the system. i feel pods are best bred in a seperate system. their requirements go completely opposite to what most people want done in the display tank.

see, look, i can play nice when it comes to refugiums.

G~

[trea]

G,

Thanks, for the taking the time to answer the questions. It alright to be cool

[Geoff]

i tend to be very negative about refugiums. i seem to have a bit of a reputation about it.

G~