Refugium vs Mechanical Filtration

[asonitez]

Ok... Heres My dilemma....

I own a Oceanic Model 2 Sump. Basically a 30 Long. I have a 90 Gallon Tank.

I first planned to mod my Oceanic Sump to incorporate a Refugium that I could hopefully grow some pods and stuff that would enable me to own a mandarin some day. I purchased the materials from home depot 1/4" Acrylic that has not been damaged or cut yet and was planning to cut my baffles into the system.



I did ALL of this BEFORE 100% deciding on a skimmer. In the end a HSA MTC 250 IN SUMP Skimmer rated for a 200+ gallon tank powered by a MAG 9. Oh Yeah This will skim. It will skim the grime in the teeth off of a crack head and give him Veneers. I mean... It fricking Skimmed my bathtub and produced skim-mate from tap water..... (Not really prolly because I had just done a water change in the bath tub and really didn't run all the water down before testing the skimmer. So I'm Definately not shorting my system there.

Inside of my tank holds about 100lbs of Live Rock and I have 3 Sureflow Modded MaxiJet 900's putting out about 4800 GPH in flow. I have a MAG 12 Return Split into 2 Loc-Line Outputs for the Corner without a MaxiJet.

Inside of my Sump.

I have a VIA-AQUA Reactor that I planned to fill with PhosBan.
I was thinking of purchasing another reactor and fill that one with Carbon

I have 40lbs of Fine Aragonite mixed with 40 Pounds of Caribsea Live Sand. I'm NOT going DSB really. It should give me probably an inch or so.

I plan to have a heavy Bio'load of FISH and lots of Softie Corals.


Should I

Add 1 more Reactors
1 With Carbon
That will give me a Phosphate Reactor and a Carbon Reactor.

Squeeze a Refugium into my Sump. It will be Small Barely 1 Foot Long by 18" Wide.

or Continue on with my current plans and use the Acrylic to build a Triangle shaped Auto Top Off Unit Or perhaps try to build a Small Refugium out of it that can rest on TOP and SPAN the width of the Sump to Raise some critters to feed a mandarin.

I already have the acrylic. Only 3 pieces though. Triangle Shaped Corner Refugium anyone .

 

[mr_X]

your 100 pounds of live rock in your display will hold plenty of food for a mandarin. just give them some time to breed. you don't need a refugium, and i don't think you have the space for one.
i also don't think you need a carbon reactor. if you are hell-bent on running carbon, a small hang on filter with some carbon in a bag will work fine, if you have an old whisper or penguin sitting around doing nothing. you don't need to run carbon full time. i run it very rarely, just to see if my tank will look any better with it...and it's not noticable.

 

[Anonymous]

Just to be a bit pedantic, but the filtration you're talking about is pretty much all chemical.

I love 'fuges, but the size you've outlined for a 90 is like pissing in the ocean.

 

[Anonymous]

Oh Yeah This will skim. It will skim the grime in the teeth off of a crack head and give him Veneers.

(composes self) What was the question? Oh yeah, I vote to skip the 'fuge as well.