Fuge or no fuge...

H

Hookem2006

Premium Member
I know this is a highly debatable subject, but want some outsiders take. I have a fuge on my 93 cube and on my 75g.

Wondering if its really worth it. In my 93g, the fuge is overrun with hair algae, I'm worried its gonna find its way to the display soon. And in my 75, all I seem to being able to grow is cotton candy algae on the egg crate.

I keep both stocked with live rock and chaeto and caulerpa. Both seem to grow ok, but nothing explosive.

I guess my real question is, should I even bother running the fuge, I don't see any real benefits.
 
why do you think your 'fuge has hair algae? My fear would be that your fuge is stopping whatever the cause of the algae is and without the fuge you'd definitely have it in your tank. My params are so much better with macro algae and I'm running a good skimmer so I can see what the macro algae doesn't catch. One thing I do (and if you have copepods in your fuge, probably not a good idea) but I remove it weekly and shake it out some RODI water and pick out any hair algae or dead chaeto if any.
 
My personal experience with my fuge, once hair algae showed up there, it showed up in the display. I've gotten rid of the under the tank fuge and run a hob diy refugium that I can easily clean if the need arises.
But for the record, I think my chaeto crashed, that was why the hair algae took over....
 
The main reason for fuges is for nutrient export. Sure its a great place to house a few copeods blah blah blah but their main function is nutrient export. If you have other means to export the nutrients than a fuge is not needed. Depending on how your skimmer is set up/sized it is probably handling anywhere from 60-90% of your bioload... no matter how good its set up it will never be 100% efficient. This leaves minor amounts of decomp that will result in phosphates and nitrates which can be handled through DSBs, fuge/macro algae, GFO, denitrifier, algae scrubber, water changes, coral consumption, or a combination of any of these.

I personally have a huge bio load. Macro algae would be pointless to control my nutrients therefore I run a RDSB for nitrate reduction and GFO for phosphate. Eventually I think I might replace both of these with an algae scrubber.

Hope this helped
 
I would rather have to rip hair algae out of my 'fuge than the display tank. Speaking from experience here.

I don't put my hands in the pred tank without a very good reason and hair algae isn't one of them.

Sounds like it's doing the job. Keeping the uglies out of sight and in an easy to export location.
 
I have to constantly trim the macro in my fuge's. I think that it helps a lot for many reasons. I would try to up the flow a bit between your fuge an display. Also find out what is creating the fuel for the hair algae in the sump.

I personally would not run a tank, unless that was what you were looking to do, without a fuge.

Best of luck.

park
 
Here is just a thought.....your algae is growing there because there is enough nutrients down there, passing threw the fuge..... Your hair algae "nuisance" is exporting alot of excess nutrients out of your system, leave it there...if you pull it out of your fuge/sump then it will surely grow more in your main tank.
I have just a sump on my 75g and a protein skimmer....the backside of my overflow wall is coated with hair algae, as well as a blue filter pad in my sump...and that is it, not a single bit in my display.
 
My main concern was the ugly algae finding its way to the display. I see your points. I believe I'll leave the fuge alone.

I just need to remove some hair algae every now and then I suppose.
 
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