Tips for a good filtration refuge

[klyeorkyle]

I want to set up a refuge and make use of the designated area in my eco-Fill sump but I need some tips on how everyone else has theirs. Do I throw in cheto and sand, miracle mud, hermit crabs? Currently I only have a handful of Cheto I just bought from fish frenzy in Temecula and a light that came with an aqueon 20g complete setup. After seeing miracle mud was $35 I've decided to use sand for now. What else do I need in order to have a successful filtration refuge? I'm getting away from using socks and still need to figure out how to fix the plumbing to fall into the lil spot on the right.

[klyeorkyle]

Here's what it looks like now.
I put a hermit crab where the plumbing is supposed to fall into to eat the detritus that's accumulated. Once it's gone I'm gonna put him in with the refuge.

[Funkateer_1]

Use the mud. Sure it costs $30 a jar but it works great and you only have to buy it once. A refugium without a nice, deep mud layer is pretty useless IME.

[klyeorkyle]

FML. Thanks for the up Funkateer. I'll run it bare until I buy the mud. Do you think I should leave the detritus at the bottom or clear it out before I put it in there? Lol fertilizer you know?

[purdy]

I use sand in my refugium. Not sure what light you're refering to but you can use a PAR 38 led flood light. I got mine from Home Depot for $30 and another $9 for a housing. Why are you getting away from filter socks? Also I recommend putting some egg crate at the top of the baffle so that the crabs don't get over to the return pump. It sucks when you get a hermit lodged in your return pump.

[SmilinAvnger]

Prudy: Egg crate over the baffles! I'm sure I read this somewhere before and forgot! Thanks for mentioning that! So simple! Dumb hermit crabs getting all over the place!

[purdy]

This is how I have mine. The egg crate on the right is across the top in between the two baffles and it extends over into the refuge, helps a lot with creating a downward current so that the water just doesn't go across the top and then returned to the display tank. Then the egg crate on the left prevents unwanted critters in my return chamber. It all works for me and my tank but maybe not for you. Also I noticed that when the water flow was forces down into the refugium my ciano bacteria problem stopped.

[SmilinAvnger]

I have the return in my fuge close to the bottom rear side. So ideally the water spreads from there and hits the macro algae and gets as clean as it can before flowing through my grating.

So full of chaeto right now... need to trim. Some of my hermit crabs just climb on top of the pile of chaeto and graze from up there. Then just waltz over the grate. I can use the egg crate like you have on the left to make a wall that they would have to climb over(hopefully not). That should take care of my lil problem!

[klyeorkyle]

The light I'm talking about is in the second picture on this post. It has the black hood. I'm getting away from socks because I have to hang it from the plumbing, which you can see in the first pic. After 5 days it starts overflowing and since its so close to my skimmer it flows onto it and drips near the back. I saw nervous going to sleep every night praying my living room wouldn't be flooded in the morning. The plumbing is stuck how it is due to the last owner using the cement. One of these days I'll try to move it but I'm not good with the whole plumbing thing. That's the main reason I bought this tank and sold my 100g, this one already had plumbing installed. : )
As for the cotton candy thing, this cheato looks dusty which might be what your talking about. It looks like there's 2 types of macro algae here, cheato and another one that has lil balls on it. My sump has a little hole in the middle of the baffle that draws water through the algae. One thing I'm seeing though is there's not much water movement at the surface of the refuge area.