Question for all the addicts using a Refugium. If there is algae starting to grow in the Refugium on the glass, will adding a turbo snail in help with keeping it under control? Will they leave the cheato alone?
Snails will help clean the algae from the glass, but it kind of defetes the purpose of a refugium since they'll poop it out as nitrate and phosphate.
I have crabs and snails in mine. My refugium is for the micro organisms mainly, I run biopellet. for the nutrient control.
Thank you for the input. Alaska Phil, if I left the refuge with nothing in there except the rock, sand and cheato with out crabs or snails wouldn't the uneating food that filters down and sit in it also cause nitrate and phosphate problems to? I am running bio-pellets alond with skimmer and a GDO reactor. Guess what I am asking is leaving food in there to accumulate better or worse then having snails or crabs whose poop will also accumulate?
Any food food that makes its way to the refuguim will be food for all the little micro organisms that live there, but if you're not using the refugium for nutrient control then I don't see anything wrong with having a couple snails in there to keep the glass clean. I'd probably go with Nerite snails as mine seem to always stay on the glass. I just scrape my sump down every couple months when it starts getting really bad, but my only filtration right now is an algae scrubber and all the algae that grows in the sump under it. I only remove half at a time since it's swarming with copopods and amphipods.
Nerites are a great suggestion. Scraping the glass clean with a credit card will allow you to observe the refugium more easily.
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