Adding feather dusters, sponges, seahorses and pipefishes to your refugium can turn your refugium into a display easily capable of rivaling your main display tank.
If you are planning to add a refugium to your saltwater, then you might want to consider going a step beyond the basic, off-display refugium most hobbyists utilize. While setting up a simple refugium is beneficial to the health of your overall system, a more involved display refugium can also rival the beauty and interest of your main display tank when populated with carefully chosen marine plants and animals.
One of the basic purposes for a refugium is to provide a refuge for macroalgae and beneficial invertebrates to grow, but there is no reason you have to stop with macroalgae. Why not also add a seagrass bed, for example, or even a few mangrove prologues? While the seagrass-mangrove refugium can make a stunning display, more and more advanced aquarists are now taking their refugia to the next level by adding other organisms.
Feather dusters (actually a worm), such as the Variegated Feather Duster (Bispira variegate) from the family Sabellidae, make a good choice for the display refugium. They are colorful and generally hardy and can easily be buried in the substrate or placed in a hole in the live rock. Once placed and acclimated to their new environment, the aquarist should expect to see the feather duster’s “feathers” (called radioles) extend from the tube. This is how the feather duster feeds—filtering organic material from the water column (some aquarists choose to supplement their diet with a product designed especially for filter feeders such as Marine Snow). When spooked, the feather duster will retract its radioles completely into its tube. Feather dusters are generally inexpensive (less than $10 for a small specimen) and readily available online or at your local fish store.
Various sponges also make excellent, interesting and colorful additions to a display refugium. While they are somewhat harder to keep than feather dusters, many advanced aquarists have had excellent experiences keeping sponges in a refugium. Sponges from the genus Ptilocaulis (e.g. Tree Sponge) or the genus Axinella (e.g. Orange Filter Sponge) are worthy of consideration. They should be anchored in live rock near the bottom of the refugium in areas of moderate to high water flow and moderate to low light. Specimens are generally available for under $50 online and at your local fish store.
To round out a display refugium, seahorses and pipefish can be added. Both seahorses and pipefish are peaceful animals that often need a species-specific tank. This makes them excellent candidates for the display refugium. Seahorses, such as the Long Snout Seahorse (Hippocampus reidi), will readily take to tree sponges by wrapping their tails around the branches, making for interesting inter-species behavior. Hardy tank-bread or wild caught seahorses weaned onto a captive diet come at a price (up to $200 each, although they usually can be found for closer to $50-$100 each).
Pipefish, like the so-called Creeping Pipefish from the genus Corythoichthys (e.g. the Network Pipefish—C. flavofasciatus), are more difficult to keep than seahorses, but are certainly worth the effort required. Pipefish (such as the commonly available Banded Pipefish—Doryrhamphus dactyliophorus)are often available for under $20 each.
The display refugium will provide all the benefits to your system that the simple refugium does, but it can also become a dramatic “on-display” tank that will no doubt garner enthusiastic attention. You will have the benefit of also being able to keep species that may not do well in a community reef tank without needing to set-up an entirely separate system. As with all marine livestock, it is imperative you do your research and fully understand the needs of each specimen before acquiring it. With the proper equipment and husbandry techniques, you should expect outstanding results from a display refugium.
