Refugium Needed If Running Reactor?

[Nemo22]

I am running a small refugium in my 10g sump. I have a 1" aragonite sand bed, chaeto macro, a couple pieces of liverock, a brittle star and a small hermit crab. It has pods growing but not an overwhelming amount of them and they don't have much chance of making it into the 24g display tank anyway.

I have a new BRS mini media reactor that I plan on installing with a mix of carbon and GFO.

So my question is, do you guys see much benefit to maintaining a fuge if I am about to set up a media reactor for phosphate removal? The fuge is about 5g and I doubt it does much in terms of nutrient removal but want to get your opinions before I go through the effort of clearing that chamber out.

Thanks.

 

[Josh]

You would be surprised how many pods actually do make it to the display. Most of my fish periodically eat pods so it gives them a food source to graze on. Running a reactor will take care of the phosphates and will likely just stunt the growth of your chaeto.

 

[Dr. Zoos]

It’s all about the cheato production in your fuge or other macros. The nutrients that they use to grow will deplete your water body of nutrients the other (bad)algae would use to grow in your tank.

 

[Mark092]

I run GFO in a reactor and have a 40 gallon fuge that still grows chaeto no problem. I'd keep the fuge and assess how the chaeto grows once you add the GFO.