[Motherboard]

Here's the plan:

A 50g refugium on top of a 225g reef tank on top of a 50g sump/refugium.

The main tank and sump inhabitants are pretty generic: corals, inverts and fish in the main with a caulerpa/mud/dsb sump for filtration. Pretty standard, nothing special.

My question is what should I put in the above tank fuge? I want it to be a breeding ground for plankton AND (here's the hard part) the tank is going upstairs in my bedroom so it will need to be visually appealing as well.

Any ideas?

Thx

Tony

[leebca]

You probably won't be able to sustain plankton growth. Generally, those kind of metamorphic lifeforms need the open sea. But you can develop quite a population of 'pods' if that is acceptable.

You could layer in some mud, covered by some substrate and then plant away with macro algae to turn it into a garden. Seeded with pods, they will flourish pretty well. Halide lighting would be best for the macro growth. Strewn with rubble, the pods will have places to hide when the halides are on.

If you have an interest of maintaining carnivorous pods (e.g. bahia) you could feed the refugium with baby live brine shrimp twice a week. If you are more interested in the herbivore pods, you can feed the refugium with micro algae. There will/could be some carnivores that will feast on the herbivores, but all will reach equilibrium.

Then for something different, you can put in some mangrove plants or sea grass, and have something growing out the top. Mangroves don't like a lot of light, so you could separate the areas with high and low light.

Just some thoughts. Good luck with your project.