Fuge and Sump...whats the purpose?

[Jason the Lost]

Been looking around the site and seeing this alot. Whats the purpose for this?

 

[hashbaz]

Fancier filtration.

In SW tanks, people put live critters in the fuge to help with the filtration. A fuge does not have much application in a FW tank.

A sump is nice because you increase the total amount of water in your "aquarium" and because you can put ugly equipment (like the heater) in the sump and not in the main tank.

 

[greenmaji]

In SW tanks the fuge is a place to house your macro algae.. it is not a FW filtration term.. no one running FW, to the best of my knolege, uses maco algae for filtration (like beard algae) in a "fuge"'
the sump does increase water volume, but not swimming space, to handle more bio-load or to increase stability.

 

[czcz]

I use a refugium in freshwater to breed shrimp and run lighting opposite the main tank to keep pH, CO2, and O2 closer to stable. It's not a stretch to keep clams, or say agressive fish like puffers, or whatever in a fuge. If you have a "living sump" its really more of a fuge than a sump IMO. Once a shared water system is in place you can do whatever you want

 

[zkt]

What does the hair algae filter out in a SW ?

 

[greenmaji]

its not air algae.. its macro algae species.. and they use it to filter out NO3 and PO4.. mostly..