The sump I am planning is going to have the refugium at one end of the sump and will have a Y fitting and a control valve just pass the Y fitting on the hose going to the refugium, so I will beable to control the water going to the refugium. The DT will be 96" long and the wall that the tank will set against is 135" long, no room to put the refugium out side of the tank. The sump I am planning will be 60"x25", this will only leave me with about a 2 1/2 ft by say 25" area (with a few inches of play room) at the end of the sump to put my external return pump and any media reactors that I will be running, not alot of room. In the sump will be a large area to hold as much Live Rock as I can, that way I can have a minimual amount in the tank. This won't leave me room for a big refugium, thats why I am asking about how good these nitrate medias work, if I could skip the refugium in the sump I could gain much needed space. So, my question is: is the small refugium that I could put in the sump really worth it, will the small refugium help control the nitrate numbers enough to make it pay for itself compaired to a Nitrate media reactor? I would also add, I will be doing weekly water changes on the DT, so that will help with the nitrate numbers, I tend to over feed my fish and I also plan on alot of fish in the tank, not to many but right at the carring (full grown fish sizes) capasity of the tank, I also will have a desent, skimmer Reef Ostopus 5000. If the refugium will really help compaired to the Nitrate media reactor, I will put it in, I just don't want to put it in, just to say I have a refugium.
