Hi all,
Rich Jackson said:
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What sort of lights plants and size of refugium is needed?
You don't need a very big tank for the refugium, I would imagine that 60 litres would do for even a really big tank, and probably ~ 10 litres is enough for a 60 litre tank. I would just use any waterproof container that you have to jhand, that fits in the space you've got.
I'd probably use
Cabomba caroliniana as my plant, <
Measuring Photosynthesis with Cabomba - National STEM Centre>, but I would imagine that any rapidly growing stem plant would do, and other species may well be better in harder water (
Ceratophyllum or Egeria?).
Then all you need to do is have a reversed lighting regime, the plants should get plenty of dissolved CO2 from the (now dark) tank and they should evolve enough oxygen to keep the main tank pretty fully oxygenated. I wouldn't worry too much about having greater light intensity than you would for the tank, although this is going to depend upon the nutrient status of the water. If you use EI, you could get away with a long light period as neither CO2 or nutrients would be limiting. I'd be tempted to add some
Asellusor Cherry Shrimps to the refugium.
I always have my tanks on a 12 hour day, so I'd have the refugium light on for the other 12 hours. We used to run the veg. filters in the lab under 24 hour daylight, but they were dealing with leachate with a high BOD, and the plants were emergent etc.
Any particular reason for a refugium? "Wet and Dry" trickle filters are a lot less work.
cheers Darrel