Refugia

The Beneficial Effects

Refugium

Refugium Turnover Rate

The addition of a refugium, or sanctuary area, incorporated into a marine aquarium offers several beneficial effects.

1) Live Food Production Area: The refugia chamber is usually designed to be separate from the main aquarium (or esthetically built into the design of the aquarium as in the ecoReef ™ system) yet included within the water column.

Small food organisms can reproduce in the absence of perdition. Pairs of micro-crustaceans (i.e. glass, mysid, and peppermint Lysmata sp. shrimp, etc.) that reproduce on a regular bases can be kept in the refugia allowing their larvae to flow into the main aquarium. This routine influx of micro funa becomes food for fish and invertebrates.

2) Settling area: Low water flow through the refugia allows suspended solids (i.e. uneaten foods, fish fecal matter, etc.) to settle out in this area. This detritus can periodically be removed by siphoning or become food for detritus eating animals housed within the refugia.

3) Nutrient uptake: The refugia can also serve as an asylum for macro algae for those Aquarist that for one reason or another do not or can not keep plants in the main display aquarium. Ammonia, nitrate, phosphate, and heavy metals are food for plants and in most cases pollution or toxic to animals.

These unwanted elements are "locked-up" (consumed) in the algae during growth. Photosynthesis or the process by which plants use light as an energy source to synthesize carbohydrates from CO₂ and give off oxygen is also very beneficial.

If the refugia area contains plants and is lit on a photo cycle opposite the main tank (Reverse Daylight Photosynthesis RDP ™ ) it will help maintain a more stable pH by removing the CO₂ produced in the main tank during the nocturnal photo period. RDP will also help maintain a saturated Dissolved Oxygen (D.O.) level during the period when all the oxygen producing plants and animals become producers.

This daily fluctuation and low pH and low DO period normally reached just before the lights come back on in the main aquarium will be positively effected by RDP and greatly reduced.

At The Aquatic WildLife Company we have found the following items work well for establishing a refugia: (this is a suggested combination "Package" of items that would be placed in a 10 gallon capacity refugia connected to a 50 to 100 gallon aquarium)