Sump setup help. Algae scrubber vs. refugiam

I need some some help on figuring out how to setup my sump. On my old tank I only had one overflow which dumped into the skimmer area then into the fuge then into the return area.


I have 2 overflows on the new tank so I was going to dump one into the skimmer area and was going to dump the other one into other end of the sump and have the return area in the center section.


Now the million dollar question do I go with a conventional refugiam or do I go with an algae scrubber in that area? I've done just a little bit of reading on the scrubber and looks like people either have great luck with them or they don't have luck at all. Can I run one just off the overflow from the tank? I see most people have a pump running them.


Was just curious was everyones opinions are and how people are doing things.


Thanks


Edit: Sump will be more than likely setup like the picture below. Return area is the middle section.

 

thing about a refugium being used for nutrient control, it needs to be about 15% of your water volume to do much.

 

Hmmm, 45 views and no comments?

So what are most of you running? Or nothing maybe, just a skimmer and return?

 

Love refugiums myself. Think of them as a pod farm, which will keep everything in your tank happily fed.

 

+1 on refugiums as well, I can regularly shake a wad of macro algae into any tank and feed a nice chunk of live pods/reseed any tank! I think Macro's do a great job of exporting nutrients as well.

 

+1 on the scrubber. Like mentioned above your refugium needs to be large or it wont do any good. The scrubber can be any size as it just fits into sump. Recommend that if you run a skimmer and scrubber (as I do) that you run the path of Overflow > Skimmer > Scrubber > GAC (if you use any) > return.

If you still want pods, throw some live rock in the sump, but I'm sure you'll have plenty up above.

 

+1 on the scrubber, I ran a typical fuge for awhile but always had problems with nuisance algae, 2 weeks after installing the scrubber not a bit of problem algae and my nitrates always stay very low, and when I clean the scrubber I take the algae dehydrate it and feed it to my fish