Salt water sump: Bio balls in, or bio balls out? Why?

[wildosworld]

Dumb question of the day......what's the difference between a sump and a refugium?? Lol

[myjohnson]

SW plants/algae + light bulb = Refugium

Bucket of water + return pump = sump

[wildosworld]

Got it. Then add skimmer to refugium? If so, where should I put the skimmer and macro? You can see in this pic the area where i removed the bio balls and added live rock.
20130416_204542.jpg

[myjohnson]

First things first....

What type of corals you trying to keep?

What size tank?

What's fishes do you plan to keep?

These three things will dictate what you need in way of equipment.

[wildosworld]

90 Gallon
Corals (current): xenia, various mushrooms, 3 anemones, toadstool and flavia (I think). Will be adding more...
Livestock (current): Majestic angel (not adding zoas anytime soon), large Sailfin, hippo tang, clowns, tellow tail damsels, black n white damsel, mandarin goby, watchmen goby, engineer goby and a few snails.

[rage]

I was referring to debris and randomness..... I know lots of my fish food gets sucked right into the overdlow at feeding time. I'm getting sinking food next time, btw....lol

You raised all the right questions.
Each of the items mentioned in this thread has its own usefulness and drawbacks. It's up to you how to apply them.
1) You use Floss, sponge, filter sock, filter pad, other medias ... as mechanical filter to trap detritus and then you clean them out to remove the detritus. If you don't clean them out often, the detritus will turn into ammonia, nitrite and nitrate.

2) Bio-balls, live rock, other filter media act as biological filter, they house denitrifying bacterias to convert ammonia to nitrite and then to nitrate. ALL of them can also trap detritus which gives you problem in #1. I've seen people remove bio-balls from the sump and replace them with live rock rubbles which defeat the purpose.

3) Skimmer removes the organic compound/ detritus from the water before they break down. A good one removes most, an average one may leave more undesirable stuffs in your tank.

After using any or all of those methods and you still have high nitrate then you do water change and while you are at it, vacumn out the detritus.

[Hangman]

90 Gallon
Corals (current): xenia, various mushrooms, 3 anemones, toadstool and flavia (I think). Will be adding more...
Livestock (current): Majestic angel (not adding zoas anytime soon), large Sailfin, hippo tang, clowns, tellow tail damsels, black n white damsel, mandarin goby, watchmen goby, engineer goby and a few snails.

Wow, you currently have all those in a 90 gallon? Those are more suited for a 200 gallon or larger tank.

But to answer your question, I would turn the sump into a refugium and add a clean up crew to the refugium as well. A couple of hermits and crabs and snails should do the trick.

[wildosworld]

They all seem pretty happy actually....enough room to grow and get adequate light, withoutbpushing each other out. Toadstool is a little big tho....lol. I'm currently about to begin a new sump project so I can a refugium in there. My current wet dry just isn't quite big enough to hold everthing, including a skimmer inside. So, the work begins.....