What is the better/cheaper idea, turning my media reactor into a refugium or making one from scratch?

Annacatherine1331

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I have a 90 gallon tank with the worlds laziest sailfin tang who can’t be bothered to actually do his job and eat algae. I been running activated charcoal in the large media reactor from BRS. I was wondering if I could just get a cheap LED light strip to wrap around the reactor. I would put it behind something to block the light from going into the refugium. How cheap of a led can I get away with here? Please let me know your recommendations are for ultra cheap refugium leds.

Would it be better to just diy a refugium from scratch so I can keep running charcoal? Should I buy a premade refugium?
 
I would probably buy or build an algae turf scrubber in your case before I turned that reactor into a refugium. If you still want a fuge, that's great - heck, I turned mine into basically a whole extra tank of its own - but a fuge and an algae scrubber are not really the same tool.

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A refugium is great for biodiversity, pod production, overall system stability, and some nutrient export. What it isn't is a fast answer to an established hair algae problem. Even good macro grows slower than nuisance algae a lot of the time, and it really starts working best once you already have enough healthy macro mass to compete.

So yes, you can convert a media reactor into a chaeto reactor, and yes, cheap LEDs can grow algae. But on a 90 gallon system, I honestly think that is likely to be more compromise than solution. You are limited on macro volume, limited on light penetration, limited on flow pattern, and it can easily become a detritus trap. By the time you rig a decent light around it, shield the spill, and still keep running carbon somewhere else, you may find you spent effort and money for a result that is just kind of... okay. There's a reason that neither refugiums nor turf scrubbers are sold commercially in that form-factor, despite the potential savings with COTS components: because it's just not well suited to it.

If your real goal is hair algae control, I would lean towards an ATS first, as it's really the more direct tool for that job. If you want a refugium because you like the ecological benefits, pod habitat, and general system support, then I would build a real one rather than forcing the reactor to do a job it is not ideal for. Both can be done at the same time, but then have to be handled a bit differently re: lighting schedules and whatnot.

And if the algae is already pretty established, I would also add more actual grazers before expecting any reactor or fuge to save the day. In a tank your size, a pair of tuxedo urchins and a 8 - 10 trochus snails will usually do more immediate visible work than a little reactor fuge ever would, especially if you manually knock the worst of it back first so they are not starting against a full-grown forest. If for whatever reason inverts aren't an option, then DEFINITELY go with an ATS first: you can find all kinds of DIY instructions out there, if you want to go that route, but, don't use cheap lights if you want the result you're hoping for.
 

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+1 on the algae turf scrubber. I’m running one for the first time for a couple months now and I’m impressed by how quickly it grows hair algae. I clean mines once a week and it’s pretty much clogged up by then. I’m thinking about getting a bigger one
 
Outside 1st year, or post crash destabilization I've never had hair algae issues and have only ran refugiums and GFO. When I do a refugium though it's much more than a canister and submersible led strip though. I have a 20 long sump under my 90g with a Fiji cube sump baffle kit. Roughly 1/4 the tank is the intake and return areas. The remaining Two chambers make up 3/4 the area. First run is full of rock with no direct lighting but enough bleed over it can and does grow some algae, the 2nd one is chaeto with a big LED gro light on it from Amazon. Ive never fussed with filter socks either. Every couple years I pull the sump out shake anything loose off the rock and scrup off any algae build up, toss the rock in some tank water, empty and deep clean it, and put it all back together. I say all that to say a refugium can and does work, it'll easily keep nitrates down and outpace GHA. What probably won't work is some tiny ball of chaeto kicking around in a home made "reactor". You need some size to it and I "feel" it is even better when full of pods and worms to process detritus into algae few right within the mass.

Oddly today was the day I cleaned up. Last time was probably late '23.
 
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