Sump vs refugium

While I'm looking into the possibility of adding a sump, I got to wondering:

Which is better for the health of the tank? A sump or a refugium? I can only add a small sump, about 10 gal max, or a small HOB refugium. A refugium would be a nice place to hide my CC star away from everyone and everything else. ;D

 

Why not have the best of both worlds? Run a sump with a chamber of live rock and Macro then a skimmer chamber then a return pump chamber and call it a sump/fuge like I do.

 

well it would have to be a refugium because the the only benefit youd get from having a sump is the extra gallons. the real reason people have sumps is to hide all the equipment from view. refugiums help filter the water.

 

I would run both. I currently have a ten to fifteen gallon sump and would have difficulty defining the chambers. If you only have ten gallons to work with underneath, I would keep that as a sump and do a HOB refugium. I am not sure how the HOB fuge would be plumbed WRT the sump, but I am sure it could be done.

 

I think I would plumb the refugium on its own loop, just from the main tank, into the fuge, and back to the main tank again. As for the sump, I would plumb its output to the input pump for my main Lifegard filter sytem which would feed back into the tank where an overflow would feed the input side of the sump. Sound about right? Right now I'm leaning towards the CPR Cyclone CY192. And it would fit in the small 16" x 16.5" x 24" high space I have to work with.

 

Sounds good bro. Go with it. Are you going to buy one of DIY?

 

Not sure I agree 100% with that. If the tank is drilled w/ overflows, the benfit of running the sump is both the oils/waste on the surface get dumped into the sump, creating a lot of turbulence and mixing, making the skimmer much more efficient there than a HOB skimmer set up. The flow in-out of the fuge (if the flow is slow enough for a fuge to be effective) would be too slow to cause that turbulence to make the skimmer more effective. The more effective skimming would be the biggest gain here.

 

if you had to pick one, I would do a refugium. IMO that would help with the health of you tank the most verses a sump

 

I'll probably buy one rather than a DIY. The tank isn't drilled with overflows so it will be a hang on-overflow setup. I'll most likely go with the fuge first, just to get my chaeto out of the main tank along with my CC star. It's really limiting me on adding corals and zoas. But I'll definately add a sump at some point. Thanks for the help!

 

Just make sure that your flow out of the tnak from the hang-on overflow is not too much for the fuge. It needs a nice slow flow to work correctly as a fuge. I'm assuming you'll continue running a HOB skimmmer as well?