skimmer vs refugium

[Shawn D]

The sump under my 75 has a 11 by 13 inch area where i could do either a refugium or put a skimmer which would be better for an sps dominated system with a planned medium bioload?

thanks

[chris4869]

Skimmer. Don't even think about running an SPS tank with only a refugium. You can have both if you get an external protein skimmer.

[dsn112]

How about a tunze skimmer that takes up a 5x5 max spot. And then a fuge next to it.

[Andrew]

I would run both if possible. Are you able to run an external skimmer?

[Shawn D]

Sadly i dont have the room to run an external skimmer under the cabinet

[Andrew]

what about outside of the cabinet?

[Shawn D]

I really would like to keep everything hidden in the cabinet though

[snorvich]

Well if you have to choose one or the other, the skimmer is more important. Ideally both would be desirable.

[saltydragon]

for a 4ft stand....its a good amount of space....it should be able to have a skimmer/fuge/return .....but for sps...i think a strong skimmer is better than having the fuge....if your plan was to use the fuge to grow macro for p04 export....then having a phosban reactor will work alot faster

[Shawn D]

Thank you all for your replies. Now what would be a good skimmmer that is easy to set up and maintain (im not very good at modding) for under 300

[dsn112]

I'm doing a skimmer an a fuge in a 3ft stand, use a 20g long and it will work.

[Shawn D]

I have my tank setup with my fuge on the left and an a.to on the right that takes up the rest of the available space

[o0jmadr0x0o]

you can plumb a fuge next to the stand and have some nice macro in it, kinda giving you a second display tank, but still getting all the refugium benefits