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Sump Question

I'm buying this sump today...http://www.triggersys.com/ts/crystal_sumps/ the crystal 36. I have some questions.

First, skimmer in overflow area. I have a dual BRS reactor. pump in refugium and return from reactor into return pump area?

I have an eShopps 200 series that will be for sale by Thanksgiving if anyone is interested. $100.

My current sump has a fuge, and I have live sand and rubble inside. I don't know if i'm getting any benefit to the tank by having the fuge...what are your thoughts about this? i tried chaeto several times and it died. I had a good light on the chaeto, but no real flow and it didn't tumble. Is there benefit to having a refugium, and if so, how should I set it up? same configuration with the sand and rubble? I never seeded it with pods...

This group has been super helpful in me developing my own little reef. I lived on Guam for two years and had over 200 scuba dives logged, and this my little slice of micronesian heaven
 
I had great success with running a fuge. Towards the end I even turned off my skimmer because it was doing such a great job. Aside from nutrient export it was a great place for pod propagation. I had a mandarin and never had to reseed the tank with pods.
 
IMO the main benefit of a fuge is a place for all sorts of little edible critters to populate to great numbers without predation which can eventually work their way into your main display. That said having a population of "food" for your tank that's constantly repopulating will not sustain your main tank most likely, it's also equally difficult to get enough nutrient control from a fuge to do the same, sure it can be done but it is by no means a "day 1" type of system like a protein skimmer is where it just works from the get go.

Probably the easiest refugium to keep is one of sand and some rock rubble which you already have, and I'd just leave it at that. Hopefully it's a bit downstream in your sump so it's not the place all the detritus settles, and given time pod populations will grow in there just fine. But do note that a simple sand refugium is vastly different then the "Trigger system" ball of chaeto refugium, the first is relatively low energy (flow) and no need for light, and the other is a high energy system, with good flow and light.
 
You can feed the BRS reactor from your return or if using a pump, keep it outside the fuge, otherwise algae might get sucked into the pump; even if you use a strainer for it, the algae might block if fast.
 
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