do i put a small cleaning crew in my fuge or will it take care of itself?

Depends on what your goals of "refugia" are, and what kind of clean up critters you are talking about...

I put turbo snails in mine. They keep the film algae on the glass, and the various "tuft algaes" that can develop in a refugium at bay. I also have some hermit crabs in there for the same purpose. They also snatch up any mysid or other foods that make it through the overflow and into the basement sumpfugium.

Otherwise, my fuge is chuck full of mysid shrimp, copepods, isopods, and amphipods, spaghetti worms, beautiful bristle worms, peanut worms, astrina starfish, tiny micro brittle starfish, sponge and macro on live rock and a deep sand bed.

If you were to put in a sand sifting star for instance, it would wipe out most of the stuff in the sand bed. If you were to put in a seahorse, pipefish, wrasse etc. you'd wipe out the various pods.

Again, what is your goal? Mine is to grow the mysid, and various pods to help replenish those in my display and to feed baby seahorses. It is also built for nitrate reduction.

If your goal is to house fish, or any other specimens, then it is STILL a true refugium, but it has now become a refugium for THAT FISH. I suggest you read ANTYTHING that Anthony Calfo has written, in print, or online, about refugia. In my opinion, he truly has it "right" and also has the knack of explaining it to hobbyists. Search Wet Web Media for refugium or buy his book, Reef Inverts.

Dave

okay, i see.....my goal is to create the best possible environment for pod populations...so, anything that will prey on them is out

i order that book & while i was there i ordered the "Conscientious Marine Aquarist"

thank you:-)

Another great read! Good job!

Dave

Hey Dave - where do you get most of your worms (peanut/spaghetti)? Are you just lucky enough to get them in with your live rock/live sand? My LFS never has things like that for sale.

I've never seen an LFS that sells "microfauna" at all. However, some do sell "live sand cultures". Most sell live rock. It is here that you will find the neat lil' critters that help our systems. I make it a habit of begging for a simple baggie of sand, rubble, macro etc. from EVERYONE I know with a marine system. This ensures diversity.

Here's what lives in my system that came as hitch hikers or in LS or LR boosters. Some good..others I'm not proud of :) :

stomatella
astrina stars
micro brittle stars
amphipods
isopods
copepods
spaghetti worms
peanut worms
bristle worms
vermetid snails (tube snail)
collonista snails (tiny turbos)
sponges (blue, red, purple, yellow, white)
forams (Foraminifera)
Sabellid Polychates (feather dusters in rock)
Serpulids Polychates (tube worm feather duster)
mysid shrimp
Scypha sponges
a single boring tunicate
limpets (keyhole and others)
barnicles
aptaisia
mojano

Wow Dave! What a list! Thanks!

What specimens besides aptaisia have you not been too proud of? Just curious...

Mojano for one....though there was something omitted from the list too.

When using grass/glass/ghost shrimp as feeders, you need to be careful about parasites on the shrimp. I've, on occasion, introduced parasitic isopods to my system. I'm much more careful now, but did have problems with them in the past.

Actually, they are quite common on shrimp. Even cleaners, pepps etc. have had them on them from time to time. You can see them on the area of the carapace where you would expect to see a fish's gills. There will be an abnormal, and discolored lump of brown, creme, and/or yellow. That's the buggers!

Dave

BTW... I've also had my share of unwanted stone/boring crabs, and other stuff that I've rid my system(s) of over the years.

D

My fuge only seems to contain Amphipods, bristle and Spiorbid worms. I guess I'm going to have to try to collect some more stuff to diversify. I havent added any snails or hermits yet, should I?

JustDavidP, i've have some cleaner and peppermint shrimps with the parasites that you were speaking of. i had successfully extracted the parasite with tweezers under the caraspace. however after three successful operations, i killed a smaller cleaner shrimp attempting the same procedure. i've been reluctant to try again, rather isolating the shrimp, and then removing it immediately after molting. i'm not sure if the shrimp would be reinfected again. do you know what exactly is the proper procedure?

Poppin from VT... you need not add snails or hermit crabs if you don't want to. I do, because I have a very nutrient rich tank (Seahorse tank) and often times the mysid and other foods flow through to the refugium and therefore needs to be consumed. I've had other refugia that never saw a snail or crab. Like the one on my 75G SPS and clam reef. The fish in the display would never let a tiny morsel go uneaten.

Walrus Reefer.... to be honest, I'd leave them be. Actually, I lied. I'd personally get the shrimp and the bloodsuckers out of the system. But that is just my opinion. It's not worth the 15 bucks to have the isopods successfully reproduce in your tank, or kill a shrimp and foul the system. I know very little about their life cycle, but don't want to learn about it as it involves my tanks :)

I've seen them on shrimp at the LFS and wont even buy parasite free shrimp from the same tanks. They are easy to see if you look for them. Your best bet is to obtain pest free, and healthy shrimp. But...not everyone notices the nasty bugs!

Bopyrid Ispods are tough little buggers. They attach themselves to the gills of the shrimp and live off of their blood. Chances are, by the time you received the shrimp, the pod has really dug in. I'm actually surprised that you were successful removing one from a shrimp at all. I've seen the lesion they make, it's not pretty.

I harvest grass shrimp, or ghost shrimp from Cape Cod during the Summer. More than 1/4 of all the shrimp I net have these parasites. I toss them back into the ocean. I keep the others in a QT for weeks before using them as feeders for my systems.

Dave

By the way...another reason I wouldn't keep any infested shrimp is that I use the shrimp as breeders. Every couple of weeks, my cleaners (and the ghosts) let loose hundreds if not thousands of fry (is that the proper term for shrimp babes?). They are then consumed by my pipe fish, seahorses, and some are siphoned for the seahorse fry in the grow out tanks.

The Bopyrid Ispods actually CASTRATE their hosts. By Castration, I mean, render them infertile. There is actually studies being conducted as to HOW they do this. Most feel that they alter the biochemistry of the host and preclude them from reproducing. There is also some correlation to weight loss, and general health of the hosts as a result of the infestation. It then gets to a point where the energetic costs of reproduction are not worth it for the shrimp. They could suffer and fail trying to produce offspring in such a volatile state.

Obviously, this is a problem if I depend on farming the shrimp fry as a food source for my systems.

Dave

Most feel that they alter the biochemistry of the host and preclude them from reproducing. There is also some correlation to weight loss, and general health of the hosts as a result of the infestation. It then gets to a point where the energetic costs of reproduction are not worth it for the shrimp. They could suffer and fail trying to produce offspring in such a volatile state.
Dave

...sounds reminiscent of parenthood to me! :-)

yep... nature's own "control" :)

ive seen critters in the fuge.its the sequal to gremlins.................... ur not ment to feed them after midnight, they muiltiply in water, and i called one of them mugwhy! lol

just reading back dave, have quite a fuge factory happening in your neck of the woods. im impressed with some of the knowledge u have there buddy.

I'll tell you, I'd be nowhere without the Boston Reefers Society. We are blessed with some of the brightest hobbyists out here.. Randy Holmes Farley, Greg Hiller, you name it... these bright chemists, biologists etc. all grouped in a central location (happens to be around New England's Bio-tech industry) is a bonus!!

Also, via BRS, I have cups of muck and mire from at least 24 systems within my area. We also have that one gentleman, Greg Hiller, who sells mysid and other fuge critters. I doubt he'd ship overseas, but if you are within CONUS, he may do some business with you. Check out his site at: http://www.greghiller.com/ He's not a "business" per se...just a Bio Engineer and Hobbyist willing to spread around some critters for the cost of catching them in his systems.

I just love refugia...as you will see in my past, present and future posts. I spend more time looking into my fuges than in my display. I love identification problems, and the simple unknown. I was always that geeky kid with the ant farm in the neighborhood :) It's just amazing stuff...the micro world..and far bigger than Homo Sapien!

Dave

JustDavidP, thanks for your input. i have't tried to extract any more isopods since i killed the the last patient. i look at the shrimp more carefully now before puchase. i actually originally thought i was a shell deformity. it was a friend who is a surgeon at Stanford that pointed it out as a parasite and showed me his way of pulling it out. on large cleaner shrimp it really wasn't that hard. i guess i just didn't have the steady and gentle hand of a surgeon when it came down to a smaller shrimp. my first 3 patients lived, but of course i don't know the long term effect i may have had.