protein skimmer..please help..

I'm finally starting over on my reef tank after absolutely doing everything wrong. I am almost ready and I have hit a wall. My problem is my sump is not long enough to have a protein skimmer and a refugium. After a fair amount of research i still have questions. Do i need a protein skimmer? and if so can i plumb it outside the sump? I am ready to set it up as soon as i figure this out all suggestions/help are welcome.

 

Short answer.. no... but be prepared for more water changes.

A skimmer's function is to clean water. If you do not have one, then you must have a plan for cleaning that water. Either an extremely light bio-load and lots of live rock, or water changes very often.

As for plumbing an external skimmer.... very possible. What you are looking for is called a recirculating skimmer. They are slightly more expensive, but can be hard plumbed instead of sitting in the sump.
When shopping for skimmers, they will say if they are external sump compliant... or should.
Link for an example..... http://www.marinedepot.com/Reef_Oct...iums_Reefs-Reef_Octopus-CV5131-FIPSRC-vi.html
Marine Depot has a dozen examples of external skimmers and there are plenty of others out there.

 

Ok other way around too any suggestions on a separate refugium I have a space roughly a foot long and 17 inches wide beside the sump

 

A separate refugium is also a possibility for you. A lot of people have a refugium separate from their sump making it so some water goes into the fuge, the rest going into the sump then both combining before the return pump send the water back to the DT.

 

If I had to choose between the two, I would go for the skimmer. I think that doing an external refugium is probably easier to plumb than the skimmer, however having one that is very small probably provides little benefit. It would be helpful to know what size display tank you are planning and how much room you have under the display for the things you want to do. Good luck!

 

Ok I think I've figured it out. possibly. Hopefully. My sump is a 29 gal. Tank I have 8 inches of room for skimmer and other things. Then it goes into the refugium is 9 and a half inches wide enough. Then into the return area. I had to remove the filter bags is that ok. I have read and what I've heard was they clog up really fast and not worth it.

 

One more thing DT is 75 gal.

 

I removed my filter bags without any issues. Many people do that because they find that they clog quickly and become nitrate factories. If you like, you can place a media bag over your outlet to catch some debris. They have less filtration but are easier to clean and don't just clog up and overflow. Let us know what you end up doing!

 

I'm probably going to remove them and use the tray still but use PVC down from the bulkhead to stop the splashing.

 

Bump