HOB refugium advice?

dbetts

Member
Hello all,

I am contemplating the idea of purchasing a HOB refugium for my 55 gallon reef. Here is the actual unit I am looking at:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FRX9DW0/?tag=reefsanc-20

Anyways, I was hoping to get some advice/input from the RS community about HOB refugiums. Do you like them? Do you think they are a waste of money? Etc. I was wanting to get it as a safe area for pods to grow in the hopes of getting a mandarin at some point. Do HOB's really even offer enough to get a pod population that large? Or would it be more like a place to put macro algae?

Any and all advice/input would be appreciated! Thank ya much!!
 

DaveK

Well-Known Member
Save your money. These small HOB refugiums are too small to really be effective for anything. They are more of a feel good item. In addition, you have another item you need to clean.

If you want a refugium, construct one out of a tank and be thinking in terms of something between 10 to 20 gal for a 55 gal tank. I don't think you would be able to get it in the stand, but you could set it up as sort of a second display tank.
 

StevesLEDs

RS Sponsor
Been there, done that, definitely a huge inconvenience to maintain. I agree completely with DaveK - get a ~10 gallon aquarium and put it underneath the stand (tight fit!) and safe yourself the trouble of the HOB.

-Jeff
 

dbetts

Member
Thanks for the advice! It is kind of what I assumed. I will pass on getting one. Thanks again!


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DaveK

Well-Known Member
So what all would you put in it to be a second display? ...

By "second display" all I'm talking about is that the refugium can be viewed. There is a lot of interesting things to see in a refugium.

As far as what you put in it, this depends upon what you want the refugium to do. You can't go too far wrong with some macro algaes and possibly a course but very shallow sandbed for pod production. Optionally, you add some clean up crew members.
 

LJC6780

New Member
By "second display" all I'm talking about is that the refugium can be viewed. There is a lot of interesting things to see in a refugium.

As far as what you put in it, this depends upon what you want the refugium to do. You can't go too far wrong with some macro algaes and possibly a course but very shallow sandbed for pod production. Optionally, you add some clean up crew members.
Yeah, I've seen some really cool macroalgaes but wasn't sure if that's what you'd use or something else ...


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DaveK

Well-Known Member
The "traditional" macro algae is chaetomorpha, but you can use any of them you like. I'd say green macroalgaes are easier than red ones, and red ones are easier than brown macroalgaes, but this is very general. Get the ones you like. They grow rather quickly under good conditions, so you only need a small amount to get you going.
 

yungreefer2410

Well-Known Member
Display refugiums are the bees knees. It's like a different part of the ecosystem that you can highlight. Here you can have deep sand, nice rock structures, gobies, mandarins, all sorts of shrimps and filter feeders, NPS corals like sea fans, and even seahorses and pipefish if you have cold water and enough live food for them to eat. And of course you would have very interesting macro algaes in it as well along with an abundance of pods. A google search for macro algae will turn up some results, or you could check them out at reefcleaners.org
 

LJC6780

New Member
I've set up a 2.5 gallon hex tank with a bit of live rock rubble and several macros I got online. Tons of pods already! I'm feeding them phyto and trying to get a culture of microalgae going. No sand though ... should I add sand too?

I've got ulva, brown seaweed, red and green skinny gracilaria, codium and chaeto in there. I have some caulerpa in my sump too that I might move a bit over.

It's a stand alone tank with heater and bubble filter and lid to reduce evap ... so how should I go about feeding the main tank?

And not meaning to hijack ... [emoji4]


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