drumbum540

At my LFS I found a small In tank refugium that caught my eye. I am thinking about buying it but I dont know if it would be worth it. It costs about $30. Would buying that refugium do me any good at all?

sirdarksol

Depends on what you'll be doing with your tank. If you want to keep a particularly small, particularly fragile invert that won't do well in your main tank, a refugium is great. Otherwise, you could use it to house some small mangroves, which would help suck nitrates out of the water.

drumbum540

I dont plan on doing anything too difficult. maybe a couple mushrooms. I would like to try a mandarin goby in a couple months but other then that I dont have any big plans. and dont mangroves get REALLY big? I do have some small rubble pieces of live rock and sand that came with the rock when I shipped it that I could put in there. since it is an in tank refugium would I need a spare light? I did find one small invert that I really like. it is called like a sexy shrimp or something. they are pretty cool looking.

sirdarksol

Some trees can be kept small by trimming roots and branches. Not sure if mangroves are one of these trees, but I know people keep them. They might just get rid of them when the trees get too big.

drumbum540

Thats true. I have never seen mangrove trees being sold at the lfs. do you know of a place that you can get them?

sirdarksol

I don't. I'm guessing you can order seeds. The pods are pretty hardy.

drumbum540

okay, thanks for your help!

agsansoo

Your tank is way too small for a mandarin goby. They require at least 80 lbs of established live rock full of copepods ! Please research this.

drumbum540

Thats not what I have read. I have heard many stories of people keeping them in nano tanks with copepods. I would arrange my tank to accommodate copepods, the mandarin's main food source. Instead of a fuge or a sump I will culture the pods in a separate venue: several quart mason jars on the windowsill. I will inject the tank with fresh pods on a regular basis so the population will always stay at adequate levels. It seems really easy to culture the pods. you just put them in one container, divide them up into two containers and just let them keep on multiplying.

drumbum540

http://joshday.com/mandaringoby.htm

great site

Mike

I remember researching mangroves a while back and I think it was A. Calfo or maybe J. Sprung that didn't really recommend them over the macroalgaes with the reason being that mangroves are really slow growing, can get big and they are not as efficient as the macroalgaes at removing nitrates/phosphates from the water.

Keeping the mandarin fed in a nano can be a lot of work. Are you prepared to do that much work culturing pods just for the mandarin?

sirdarksol

But they're really cool looking plants, and that counts for something.
I think that, once they're established, they're pretty hardy plants. Not sure about the macroalgaes in that respect.

I also think that there should be a program where aquarists can donate their mangroves (the ones that have grown too big) to holding back the erosion of the southern ocean shores (places where mangroves would normally grow, but have been stripped away or burned in Everglades fires)

Mike

yeah, they are really cool looking.

GreenMan13

A donation idea like that would be great.

From what I have read, the macro algae that a lot of people use like cheto is very hardy and grows like weeds and absorbs a lot of nutrients.

Mangroves are horrible for nutrient export but look cool which is why people have them. I once saw a tank that had them in the main tank to form a beach in one area. It was pretty cool looking.

drumbum540

Thank you guys very much. I will keep all of it in mind!

agsansoo

Good luck ! Keep us posted on the pod culturing.

drumbum540

I know have a tank full of pods. They have eaten all the algae growing on the glass and rocks, its great! I caught maybe 30-40 in a mason jar and have them sitting in a window sill and it already seems like they have doubled! as soon as I put some fish in there they will be gone.

agsansoo

When I had a mandarin, I was pod culturing in my refugium. I noticed the pod population would raise and fall within the month. It was very hard to keep constant numbers of pods. Take some photos !