best use of 5 gallon space?

[new2scrub]

If you had a 5 gallon refugium plumbed into your system and you wear using the ATS as your primary filtration what would you use this space for? mangroves? cryptic zone? deep sand bed? non reef safe creatures? what would best compliment the ATS?

[zoa]

Im a little lost? If you already have a refug.......I would say it should be a refug. If your in reference to a sump. I would leave it just that. A box of water. Use it as a place to store the heater and the top off unit.

[SantaMonica]

If you don't need the space for the scrubber, I'd remove it. No sump = better coral feeding.

Mangroves won't grow (I think), cryptic does no good for the corals (unless you just like knowing that you are growing things you can't see, but still they consume food particles that corals need).

DSB might be ok for micro life; but the rock already does the ammonia reduction.

If you have to keep it, how about making it a frag station. Or add rock rubble and grow larger pods.

[scott26]

I have mangroves along side my scrubber and they are growing well.

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[new2scrub]

my equipment is all on a huge custom made shelf in the basement. my scrubber is on the top shelf and it gravity feeds into my 20 gallon sump on the bottom shelf . my ro filter and rez are also on the bottom shelf. I just have the perfact place on my top shelf for my 5 gallon hexagon acrylic aquarium. I could gravity feed it of of the main drain and let it overflow into the sump. So NO I dont HAVE to use it but I thought I could use this 5 gallons of space to enhance my system in some way??? I just do not want to have something that will compete with my scrubber...

[srusso]

my equipment is all on a huge custom made shelf in the basement. my scrubber is on the top shelf and it gravity feeds into my 20 gallon sump on the bottom shelf . my ro filter and rez are also on the bottom shelf. I just have the perfact place on my top shelf for my 5 gallon hexagon acrylic aquarium. I could gravity feed it of of the main drain and let it overflow into the sump. So NO I dont HAVE to use it but I thought I could use this 5 gallons of space to enhance my system in some way??? I just do not want to have something that will compete with my scrubber...

It maybe good to remember, less is more a lot of times. One less thing to possibly have problems is the way you could look at it. Plus less electricity, etc...

[SantaMonica]

Well so far my opinion of cryptic areas is not good, but nevertheless you could start one, maybe with just tons of rock rubble, and try to get some bigger pods. But it will increase nutrients because of the trapped particles, so it might not let you feed your corals as much. Then again, the increase in pod size might make up for it.

[MorganAtlanta]

If you don't already have a lot of rock in your display, I'd do the rubble to try and grow bigger pods, or other food-type critters.

[new2scrub]

ok i put 6" of crushed coral in the bottom of the 5 gallon and filled the rest with live rock and i have 5 small mangroves on the way with a single flood light pointing on them plugged into the same timer as my scrubber lights . we will see what happens....

[Ace25]

You say this is in a basement? I was going to say go with Mangroves, not because of their nutrient reduction properties (a few mangroves will not do much at all to help with filtration, which means it won't compete with an ATS) but I was going to recommend them just for the visual of them, they are neat plants IMO. If it is located in a basement where they won't really be seen, and they don't really help with filtration (they don't hurt, but do require light to grow which is extra electricity) then it is kind of pointless unless you spend a lot of time down there.

Having run a deep sand bed for many years and dealing with all the problems that come along with that, I would not recommend them now a days. More work than they are worth, don't really provide that much benefit (theory of them works MUCH better than reality) and when they go bad, they go REALLY bad, ie they can release stuff into the water that can kill a tank in extreme circumstances.

I think some live rock rubble (around golf ball sizes) with no sand in the fuge would probably give the most benefit to the tank in terms of growing things like pods and providing a good amount of biological filtration as well. I think the key is making the rock rubble the proper size, too small and there is not enough space between rocks for flow to keep them clean, to large can lead to the same thing with large rocks acting more like sponges than filters. I would remove all the crushed coral, I think it is going to lead to way more problems than it will help by trapping food/waste. Just my opinion, but I think there is a narrow window on how to make a fuge work well, fall outside that window by adding too much rock, wrong size pieces, or other things like sand or crushed coral in a fuge and it can end up causing more issues than it solves. I have 2 Koralia 3's in my sump, no rock or substrate, just to keep everything suspended in the water. If this 5G space were mine, I would cover the bottom with golf ball size pieces of rock and then build little rock piles from that and put the mangroves in the middle of the piles. I would add a small powerhead to it as well.