Help me choose my filtration

[Landon K]

I have the Red Sea XL300 G2 currently cycling without filtration and I am trying to decide what equipment I want to go with. I would like a skimmer, reefmat, and refugium, but there just isn't enough room in the sump. I am not willing to go without a refugium, so I could either do skimmer and refugium or reefmat and larger refugium. I have heard that the reefmat removes a lot of what a skimmer would take out without a reefmat, so I am leaning larger refugium and reefmat with no skimmer. I will be doing 10% water changes weekly and it will be an SPS dominant tank. What do you guys think?

 

[Idoc]

I've never used a Reefmat, so I can't comment on the use of that. But, a skimmer is a good idea, especially with a newer tank. The refugium, in my experience, isn't something that needs to be up and running at the start of the tank since you aren't going to want your nutrients bottoming out early in the maturing process...that's a recipe for dinos! I would leave space for your refugium and add it in later as the tank matures. Just food for thought....

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Skimmer or bust. I wouldn't run a reef tank without one.
My opinion.
Do an algae turf scrubber waterfall style that feeds down to your refugium.
No macro as the hair algae will be on the turf scrubber.
D