Fuge question: Switch mud for sand & skimmer?

[nengland]

I'm moving to another city in the next couple weeks and taking advantage of the tank teardown to change my setup. Aside from the skimmer and stand I'm also considering the substrate in my sump.

Right now I have a 20L sump with a basic ecosystem setup (baffled with miracle mud) and a Remora Pro on the backside of the display. Right now I have HORRIBLE algae problem. (diatoms and cyano and this is past the normal tank break-in months)

I want to ditch my Remora and use an Octopus nw-200 in-sump... but since that's going to really take up a lot of real estate on the mud and probably obliterate the nutrients/pods down there, should I even bother pretending it's a fuge? Should I just ditch the mud and just put some sand down there? It'd probably be a lot less to stir up that way...

Any thoughts?

[bertoni]

I'd probably ditch the mud. I don't think it really adds much value unless the refugium has sea grasses or mangroves in it. How much space would be left after adding the skimmer?

[nengland]

Maybe 6 inches at best... wow. So, yeah that's not even a question anymore. I guess the better question would be should I even bother with any substrate in the sump? The tank already has a DSB.

[bertoni]

I wouldn't put any substrate into it. Not enough space to make it worthwhile.

[carman9941]

any chance of a seperate sump that you could tie together as a refugium?

[bureau13]

I would use an external skimmer...not familiar enough with the Octopus to know if its an option with that particular skimmer....keep the mud, and put some chaeto in there. I don't know, but I suspect the mud has more to do with keeping the macroalgae happy than anything else.

jds