Hi Ben. I have played around with different cycles of lighting including
24-7, reverse daylight and normal hours (same as my reef) and quite
honestly, the results were about the same. Algaes, especially higher forms
of algae like the caluerpa also benefit from a dark period, just like fishes
and corals (and us!). The only real benefit to lighting a refugium 24-7 is
that it lessens the chances of your caluerpa going a-sexual and crashing. It
seems that a constant light keeps this from happening. Personally, I like
the reverse lighting, only because it seems to help a bit with the pH of the
tank.
Now, you may see more critters if you gave the refugium a dark period, but
honestly, when I had mine 24-7, I did have a lot of them out and about. I
did not see a drastic difference with a dark period. I did see more of them
come out and use the glass when the refugium was dark, however those same
critters will grow and reproduce in the dark areas of the refugium, under
the rock and such.
Question, do you feed your refugium? I throw a bit of flake foods in a few
times a week, or even a little of the frozen foods I have when I am feeding
my main tank. Food is important if you want the critters to reproduce. I see
large changes in populations very quickly if I forget to feed for a week or
two. My suggestion is to feed.
Also, stack the rock so that it is sort of lumped together. That will allow
more crevasses and "joined" areas for the bugs to thrive.
Finally, you may consider adding some more LS. Make it about one or two
inches deep. That will be deep enough for you sand loving bugs to thrive.
As for the 55, the more water volume the better. The thing to consider if
you are going to be putting a lion fish in there is that you want to create
an environment he his going to be happy in. If the tank gets overrun with
caluerpa, he is not going to like it. He is going to want some LR caves and
that type of stuff, so in essence, you will want a species tank set up for
him, and that will have the benefit of being a growout tank (if lighted for
that). You may want to reconsider using it to grow out caluerpa, and if you
do, you will want to really keep it in check, if you add the lionfish. I
think adding the 55 gallons of water will have a great benefit while the
waste of the lion fish will be minimum compared to the water volume. It
should be fine.
IMO,
Shane C.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ben Holt [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Friday, September 28, 2001 4:36 PM
> To: Theil's reefkeeping
> Subject: refugium lighting
>
> Hi everyone. I wanted to know how everyone who uses a refugium lights it.
> Do you run light on a 24 hour schedule or do you have a period of dark? I
> have run my 24/7 since I started this spring. I only use a 65w plant bulb
> over a 20 long tank. It seems to be plenty of light considering I pull
> out
> enough calurpa to almost fill a gallon pitcher once every week or two.
> The
> problem seems that when I first set this up I saw all kinds of little
> critters but now there doesn't seem to be as many. The only other
> creatures
> I have in this are 3 or 4 hermits and a lot of snails (I have some snails
> that reproduce like crazy, I think they are strombus snails.) Would
> turning
> off the lights for a period during the day be better than keeping them on
> all the time?
>
> Also one more question. I have a 55 gal tank that I have consindering
> hooking into my system in order to grow out some more calurpa and some of
> my
> crazy growing xenia and yellow polpys. I would like to keep a lionfish in
> this tank. Would a fish like this create to much bioload for a reef tank?
> The current system is roughly 220 gallons total volume (tank, sump, and
> refugium) with maybe 150-175 lbs of rock and a 6 foot homemade protein
> skimmer that pulls some serious gunk.
>
> Thanks
> Ben
>
> ________________________________________
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