New 125 gallon tank - wet/dry or no?

[MLVA123]

After having read for weeks (this site is awesome BTW), visted all the LFS in my area, and talked with many local reefers, I have chosen a LFS that I am going to entrust to help me build my new reef tank. The owner of the place, Joe Genero, is very well-respected in the local reefer community and I am thus quite inclined to follow his advice. This is tempered of course with my own growing knowledge and with the plethora of opinions I have amassed in all my research.

Joe suggests that I go with a wet/dry and a kick-ass skimmer, and then add a U/V filter after a few months. I have read many, many articles and threads here that lead me to believe that a wet/dry may not be necessary and may actually create the potential for excessive nitrates and the resultant complications. So my question is this: should I go with the bio filtration as recommended, or not. If not, is anything else required in the sump? I was thinking if I forego the W/D, then I should probably have a decent DSB and/or refug setup in the sump. :?:

-Mike

 

[Anonymous]

IMHO, W/D and U/V are devices that will contribute more to the sale chart of the industry than your fish tank. An appropriate skimmer, on the other hand, will be a great idea for a reef tank.

 

[Len]

I agree with David Magen. Go without the wet/dry and just a good skimmer and DSB. W/D's really aren't popular with reefkeepers and haven't been for a decade now. They're not as evil as some reefkeepers will paint them out ot be in my opinion, but it's also an unncessary component for reef tanks that are already richly oxygenated with ample surface area for microbiological processi.

 

[tazdevil]

What len said.

They're not as evil as some reefkeepers

I think the only evil thing about them is the amount of money you spend on them! Considering a 20gallon allglass costs maybe 10-20$

 

[Anonymous]

On the wet/dry. Are you going to use live rock? If not then a wet dry is your best bet. If you are going to use live rock, then a wet/dry is uneccessary, as it functions the same as the live rock only less efficiently. UV's are kind of a mixed bag, not absolutely neccessary, (the way a protein skimmer is), but not redundant (the way a wet/dry + live rock is).

 

[MLVA123]

Thanks for the replies!
I still worry about humongous algae blooms and stuff - it's kinda hard not to get the willies when you read some of the horror stories on here, but I feel like I know enough about the chemistry to be able to deal with most of the common problems when they hit. For most of you folks out there running just live rock and a skimmer, what has made you stay clear of DSB or refug? Are those redundant too?

 

[Anonymous]

You can think of a DSB or a refugium as a more specialized version of live rock. DSB's work on the same principles as live rock (nitrogen cycle, through bacteria), but it has even more surface area than live rock does along with the potential for a larger anoxic layer, (which can be good or bad), refugiums work by absorbing all of the nutrients in the system through plant growth and harvesting, and provides microhabitat for small crustaceans and other small inverts that provide food for the corals and fish.