KJC18

What exactly is a refugium?

What does it do?

Is is important to get one or can i run a reef tank without one?

What do i need to start a refugium?

Jim

a refugium is sort of a second smaller tank attached to a main tank, for delicate or tasty inverts to live in. Here's a great little article about them
http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/aqu...a/aa041400.htm

KJC18

ok let me see if i read this article correctly. The refugium is nothing more than a refuge from predation for smaller species?

So all in all, is the refugium just a place where you add inverts that naturally filter your main tank? so your fish and etc wont eat your natural invert (live rock etc) filteration system?

Also i'm guessing you wouldnt add any other power filter or skimmer (etc) into your refugium right?

I hope i understand this correctly, Thank you for the article!

reef freak

A fuge usually has Cheato, sand, and a couple shelter rocks. You can put trouble fish in it, inverts that are being picked on and the ocasional anemone on the run stinging the outta corals.

You can still use a skimmer, but I wouldn't use it in a fuge.

The way my tank is setup is I have a sump under the tank. This has my pump/skimmer/filters/ ect. Now, If I wanted to, I could turn it into a fuge, or I could put a hang on fuge. A hang on allows you to see the fuge and animals in it. It can be internal or externally hung. The hangons have a mini pump to keep water flowing through it.