New tank - Skimmer or Fuge

[JWright0291]

Hi everyone,

I started my first tank roughly a month ago and am struggling with nitrates.
I used Dr. Tims, dosed ammonia a couple times, and got it to the point that it was going away in about 24 hours. After that, I went ahead and got a single clownfish to assist in bioload because I wasn't seeing any diatoms or algae bloom yet. It's been about 2 weeks since adding the clown and its doing great and diatoms are spreading. However, I think I may be overfeeding and causing nitrates to be high. I feed twice a day, pellets in morning and a quarter of a cube of shrimp at night. That being said, I have done 2 30% water changes the past 2 weeks and my nitrates continue to be around 80ppm.
With that, what is the best way to handle nitrates first, fuge or skimmer? Will end up with both but need to prioritize spending.
Tank is a IM Fusion 20 with a IM purity pack on each side for filtration.

Thanks
Jacob

 

[blaxsun]

An InTank refugium basket is probably your cheapest option (plus the light). Have you picked out a skimmer for your IM?

 

[JWright0291]

An InTank refugium basket is probably your cheapest option (plus the light). Have you picked out a skimmer for your IM?

Looking at likely the IceCap K1 since the IM skimmers are constantly out of stock.

 

[blaxsun]

Looking at likely the IceCap K1 since the IM skimmers are constantly out of stock.

The IM skimmers are also overpriced garbage, and you'll be replacing the pumps every 2-3 months (when IM actually had them in-stock for warranty, that is).

 

[Lividfanatica]

I ran a Tunze 9001 skimmer in compartment 1 and a fuge in compartment 2 of my Fluval M90 (24 gallon). Third chamber was a heater, return pump and all my probes/ATO, etc. That worked very well until i moved on to vodka. So why not have both?!

 

[JWright0291]

I ran a Tunze 9001 skimmer in compartment 1 and a fuge in compartment 2 of my Fluval M90 (24 gallon). Third chamber was a heater, return pump and all my probes/ATO, etc. That worked very well until i moved on to vodka. So why not have both?!

Definitely plan on both! Just want to see which I should buy first since if I buy both together, I would also then need to find a new place to live..

 

[Spare time]

A hob refugium or algae scrubber would be best. Skimmers do not lower nitrate on their own (same goes for phosphate)

 

[Rico's Reefnecks]

If you have a nitrate problem now, you have organics decaying somewhere. Refugium will only deal with the end-product of this decay (nitrates), not eliminate the source. Skimmer will pull earlier stage organics out before they decay. CUC will help prevent decaying organics from accumulating in substrate. Reduce feeding and increase CUC. Clean substrate if accumulated gunk, but not all at once or you could stir up so much waste you crash the tank. Then consider cheap skimmer - aquaticlife makes a $50 one you can get on amazon, stick inside the tank anywhere and run either permanently or to help did you out of this hole. As bonus points you can dose a little microbacter 7 (brightwell) - but you should be running a skimmer with this or the bacteria can bloom, die off, then you're back where you started.