Refugium-Good/Bad, should I add one?

[James]

My 55gal. tank has been up and running for a few months now and everything is doing fine. (I know, Don't fix what ain't broke.)
But, I've noticed that a couple of you have refugiums attached to your tanks. The whole refugium thing is new to me, and I was wondering what the benefits and the draw backs are to having one.
Should I get one?, and if so, what size should it be to support my 55gal. tank?

Oh wise salty reefers Please shed thy great wisdom upon me

[golfish]

I don't have a DSB in my main tank so I have one in my fuge. I aslo had some alage problems a few months after starting my tank so I added some macros to it. I now run the lights 24/7 and have no alage problems. If it ain broke don't fix it. If you still want to add one I'd go with the biggest you can get. I run a 30+ gal fuge on my 120, plus I have a 40 gal sump.

[ick sucks]

a refugium can be a good thing. consider this, algae its not a wanted thing in your tank but in a refugium it can be good because it usightly look is hidden and it also provides filtration the natural way. if you allow algae to grow it will constantly remove nitrates, ammonia , nitrates and various minerals in the water cosidered bad to fish and inverts. plants need theese fish wastes to grow as well as algae. its almost like the plants were set up to purposely remove and keep the water clean and healthy. in a scence its a sybiotic relasionship between producers of waste and cosumers of waste. symbiotic because they rely on one another. how well because if fish did not produce the waste the plants would not grow and if the plants did not grow the fish would not get any oxyegen to breath.... 99% of all oxyegen is produced by ocean plants and algae-thats a powerfull ecosystem. you are breathing air made by slimy algaes and phytoplanktons of our oceans. POWERFULL little things........


anyways a refugium can be used as a pollution removing POWERHOUSE.


good luck