my fuge is above the sump, which it pours into. the sump is then pumped to the main. i would like the fuge to pour into the tank but it would be hard to make that work with the larger sized fuge i wanted. im my opinion, your better off with a large fuge than one of those little HOB ones. i included lots of macro and a DSB in my fuge and it worked wonders for my set up. the main goal was filtration though, and any pods that grow is more of a bonus.