refugium on a 55gal tank

[chrisdaphish]

im not very good iwth the equipmetn part of hte hobby.. haha not really good @ any part besides hte stare and watch part... but if i put a refugium on a 55 gal wut would i need? all i know is a return pump.. what woudl be put in a refugium? live rock? and if i had a refugium woudl that be enough for filtration for a 55 gal if hte refugium was 10 gals

There are lots of ways to hook up a refugium to a tank. It just depends on where you want to go with it. There is the HOB refugiums like the CPR's which I have herd are decent although a bit small. There are systems that will be plumbed very much like a typical filtration sump. There are some that can be piped into a sump. I have even seen a couple of people use a 5 gallon salt bucket and a small power head and clip on plant light. Just depends on how much you want to spend, how much room you have to work with and which option you wanna take.

Many will put a DSB in thier 'fuge. They also use live rock often times. A lot of people will use some sort of Macro algae such as Chaeto. I have added a few mangrove trees in the past and liked it but they arent neccessary.

I dont think it should be used as the filtration system but more as a componet to compliment the filtration system. As far as "fuges go...Im from the bigger is better school of thought. In fact the 135 I sold to a LFS for use as a display tank had a 140 gallon refugium with mud and about 2 dozen Mangrove trees 160 lbs of rock and tons of macro-algae. This was an excellent set up although I will admit was way over kill on a tank that size...I could have gotten way with a 40 gallon regium just fine Im sure...

HTH's....

[TranZ]

i agree on what was stated above...bigger is better but if u don't have room...having a small one is better than nothing. on my newly setup fuge (thanks to Icereefer for sending me a CHAETO) i have 5 lbs of crush LR.