Crazy talk thread here....freshwater Refugium? am I completely nutty?

[Ben (mtsa) malik]

Ok,

So I am planning setting up two large ( 300ish gallons) tanks, one Will have ten fancy goldfish in it. The other will have bitchers and oscars in it. I have always had very heavily planted tanks and have always used them to extend my water change schedule but with these fish being.....well....not the best at being happy tank mates with plants. So I have been researching doing over the tank refugiums but...I cant find anything really pertaining to fresh water. Finding information like flowrate, using miracle mud or enriched substrate? regular gravel with tabs? best water column feeding plants i'm thinking pathos out of the water, duckweed, and maybe some hornwort maybe some marimo moss balls. Populate it with some ramshorn snails or cherry shrimp to help up biodiversity and if they fall into the tank hey its a nice crunchy treat for the big fish. 

my questions are:

Flow rate? what is going to give the best nitrate absorption but also keep water moving.

Should I use a seperate tank besides a sump? a completely separate slower moving system?

Substrate? gravel? miracle mud?  

Water column feeders> pathos>hornwort?

Cherry Shrimp>snails>freshwater copepods? 

I would love any feedback, like am I completely mad? am I wasting time money and brain power? 

Best regards-

Ben Malik 

[Cory]

Sounds like you're mostly wasting brain power. With the goldfish just use plants in the tank for nutrient export. For the oscar tanks grow some pothos out of the top. It doesn't happen often in freshwater because water changes are cheap and easy.  You also kinda end up at the point of, check it out, I have a 300g tank with a 100g refugium. Why not just got 400g with the easiest nutrient export methods mentioned above?  

[Casual aquatics]

1 hour ago, Ben (mtsa) malik said:

Ok,

So I am planning setting up two large ( 300ish gallons) tanks, one Will have ten fancy goldfish in it. The other will have bitchers and oscars in it. I have always had very heavily planted tanks and have always used them to extend my water change schedule but with these fish being.....well....not the best at being happy tank mates with plants. So I have been researching doing over the tank refugiums but...I cant find anything really pertaining to fresh water. Finding information like flowrate, using miracle mud or enriched substrate? regular gravel with tabs? best water column feeding plants i'm thinking pathos out of the water, duckweed, and maybe some hornwort maybe some marimo moss balls. Populate it with some ramshorn snails or cherry shrimp to help up biodiversity and if they fall into the tank hey its a nice crunchy treat for the big fish. 

my questions are:

Flow rate? what is going to give the best nitrate absorption but also keep water moving.

Should I use a seperate tank besides a sump? a completely separate slower moving system?

Substrate? gravel? miracle mud?  

Water column feeders> pathos>hornwort?

Cherry Shrimp>snails>freshwater copepods? 

I would love any feedback, like am I completely mad? am I wasting time money and brain power? 

Best regards-

Ben Malik 

I love this post because I’m kinda in same boat  I have Oscar tank been racking my brain on plants that I can put in with them I also have a bichir that’s growing out to go with them along with leopard plec and few cichlids so with that said I’d like plants to help with the levels of nitrate etc just new at it myself  and @Cory pothos out the top so this plant is a floater? I have an order from you on the way for a moss ball amazon sword and nana plant I am gonna try to sneak this nana in there tank behind there cave setup hoping it will work out  

[Cory]

7 minutes ago, Wisnasky-tank said:

I love this post because I’m kinda in same boat  I have Oscar tank been racking my brain on plants that I can put in with them I also have a bichir that’s growing out to go with them along with leopard plec and few cichlids so with that said I’d like plants to help with the levels of nitrate etc just new at it myself  and @Cory pothos out the top so this plant is a floater? I have an order from you on the way for a moss ball amazon sword and nana plant I am gonna try to sneak this nana in there tank behind there cave setup hoping it will work out  

 

[Casual aquatics]

Ty so much sir

[Tetra Guy]

Put a sprig of hornwart into the sump, with a lamp on a timer and see how it does. If it thrives, you got a freshwater refugium, if it poops out, it was an interesting experiment. I have a pothos vine growing out of one aquarium, but it just looks messy to me. I like the refugium concept! 🙂👍

[Lemon]

uh you spelled bichir wrong sorry not related just wanted to let you know

Edited October 9, 2020 by quirkylemon103

[Ben (mtsa) malik]

12 hours ago, Cory said:

Sounds like you're mostly wasting brainpower. With the goldfish just use plants in the tank for nutrient export. For the oscar tanks grow some pothos out of the top. It doesn't happen often in freshwater because water changes are cheap and easy.  You also kinda end up at the point of, check it out, I have a 300g tank with a 100g refugium. Why not just got 400g with the easiest nutrient export methods mentioned above?  

That's pretty much where I keep running aground mentally. Now I can use that brain space for coming up with ways to keep plants alive in the aquariums (or in the case of pathos up and out of it.) Maybe somehow incorporate the plants as a dietary supplement for the goldfish at least. God knows they eat me out of house and duckweed as it sits.

 

Thanks!

[faydout]

If you've got a spare HOB sitting around, could you use that with no media in it to grow your plants? That seems like it would get something like what you're after for free... at least well enough to test the idea. If not, I'd think picking up an aquaclear 50 would be cheaper than buying a hang on refugium.

[Frogmouth Catfish]

MD Fish Tanks on youtube seemed to have pretty good luck with java fern, anubias, hygro pinnatifada (sp), and mosses in a goldfish tank.

[Steph’s Fish and Plants]

I played with this idea myself on a smaller, more temporary goldfish setup. I ended up using a marina breeder box. If I were doing a whole sump fuge, I’d probably use some eco complete and the fastest growing plants I can find. Moss balls in my experience are kind of slow, but if you’re wanted to put shrimp then that could be good for them. I would definitely recommend pothos, I always run it in my tanks. Stick to column feeders. Hornwort or something similar. Something low light but fast growing. And go cheap with the light at first. Treat it like an experiment and slowly crank up the intensity. Like said above, start with a plant or two, make sure it grows. 

[Snodgers]

My first sump was a 30 gallon storage tote with poret foam dividers, lava rock in the bottom, and a tetra fountain pump as the return to filter a 29 gallon. I later upgraded to a 40 long with the same sump, and now have the same 40 long and a 90 attached to a 40 gallon tote sump. What I like about both sumps I made was I placed them on cinder blocks high enough to drain through a spigot on the bottom into a 5 gallon bucket, and I could put the heaters in the tote and make the aquarium look cleaner. This is really cool for my current 2 tank 1 sump setup, because I heat both tanks using the same inkbird controlled heaters. 

Each time I made a sump, I wanted to do a freshwater refugium but hadn't figured out how to make it work. But I may have an idea now partly inspired by the OP. 

Current layout of sump:

 

Inlet [coarse poret foam]               lava rock                    [fine poret foam] return pump and heater 

 

I might switch this to the following:

 

Inlet with lava rock as refugium                     [coarse poret foam][fine poret foam]  return pump and heater

 

I may try putting neocardinia in this lava rock refugium and see how it goes. I could see a possibility for putting fry in here too, but as of yet I don't have a filter sock for the inlet pipes, so the turbulence may be a bit much for the fry if they wander too close to the inlet. This would also mean I need to alter the tote lid to make it easier to access. I already have an accidental snail population in the sump, they are clearly feeding on something in the sump, so why not try putting a colony of neos in there?