Tang heaven or chaetomorphae for refugium

[newreefer03]

I will be starting a small hang off the top refugium for my 72 gal tank that currently only has live rock, snails, hermits, shrimps, crabs, sponges, corals, and tubeworms. I was wondering if anyone has used Tang heaven from IndoPacific Sea Farms in the refugium as a nitrate reducer and amphipod/copepod breeder like people use chaetomorphae for. I was also thinking of growing the Tang heaven in my quarantine tank as I hope not to have to medicate the tank or if I do, I would move the tang heaven to another small tank. Does anyone have any opinions on this? Feel free to comment, these are just ideas that I have. I would appreciate any replies.

 

[Anonymous]

I woudl go for chaetomorpha. Better breeding ground for 'pods and other soon to be foodstuff for your main tank. Tang Heaven is gracilaria sp? if I'm not mistaken which the stuff I have seems to work ok for nutrient export but seems a little less dense for pod production. Heck why not get both? Anecdotally I have also heard that the maiden's hair type grass works well if you can get it established for growing critters, not sure for nitrate reduction how fast it grows.

Cheers!

 

[liquid]

Chaetomorpha is faster growing than Gracilaria (tang heaven).

Shane

 

[Adam1]

Hi all,

Gracilaria has a couple of other disadvantages:

It needs to be constantly in motion, "tumbling" in the water.

It needs alot more light than chetomorph does.

HTH

Adam