Grown Out Refugium With TONS of LIFE

This is a view of only ONE of my refugiums for my saltwater reef setup. Best viewed in HD, you can see all the life just busily buzzing around like insects. Things such as amphipods, mini brittle stars, bristle worms, copepods, isopods, etc! The big tree trunk in there is actually a feather duster worm that I moved from my display tank because a few hermit crabs were bothering it.

There are a few pieces of live rock in this refugium, and the little shreds of macroalgae called chaetomorpha are only there because they fell into the refugium from another refugium which feeds this one! I've setup a double refugium setup where the first refugium is where all the macroalgae is, and because it's where the algae live it requires light. The first stage is lit, whereas the second refugium is a dark refugium, which is ideal because amphipods, copepods, worms, etc all don't really like the light too much and tend to enjoy the solidarity of darkness.

I think this video is amazing because there is just so much going on in terms of pods just moving all over the place. This refugium has been alive for a little over a year now; initially after setting it up it was just a few pieces of rock and a deep sandbed but now it's definitely a haven for tiny organisms to live and breed in order to feed my display tank's inhabitants. What you see are months and months gone by and the refugium has developed itself to a very steady population. This refugium feeds into a return area where a pump can push whatever life enters that area into my display tank. At night in my display tank I see TONS of amphipods and other things all over the substrate, so I know they are definitely getting there safely!

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• refugium
• copepods
• copepod
• pods
• pod
• amphipods
• amphipod
• isopod
• macroalgae
• algae
• macro
• bristle
• bristol
• worm
• worms
• live
• rock
• coral
• LR
• feather
• duster
• calcium
• sand
• populated
• thriving
• grown
• out
• life
• tons
• saltwater
• reef
• fish
• fishtank
• return
• pump
• mandarin
• goby
• dragonet
• dragonette
• scooter
• blenny
• snails

[TheWarOrphan]

how do you get all these animals and life in here?

[doRYEmon]

@TheWarOrphan i started off with live rock and live sand and months later the population of these organisms have increased to a stable number. keep in mind this refugium is being fed by my larger refugium which has live rock, live sand and macro-algae (chaetomorpha and caulerpa) which initially carried a few of these guys in order to seed the refugium but now they have multiplied. Add these three things and wait a few months.

[Hasans01]

This is fantastic. I think your refugium stands alone and there's no that much distrubance like too much water entering and leaving it. can you show us other tanks and refugium and how they are connected?

[cheekybastard99]

my mandarin wants to come hang out there for a while

[preble]

Those are some nice size pods

[tcfagley]

Did you steel the ocean

[RaffleReefer10]

awesome!

[TheWarOrphan]

@doRYEmon man my fuge is starting to look like this! haha check out my pod video!! i have a few brittle stars and my main display has tons of amphipods!

[TheLone14neer]

Good Video. Debussy and reef tanks are my favorite too.

[clownshoo]

Very nice! Truly a "refuge" as it should be.

[barronredneck]

Testing comment

[barronredneck]

Testing

[bntv29]

Please do a video of the refugium system?