A tiny fuge is not going to help you much, though a coral rubble stack can: but if you can manage 10 or 15 gallons (middle space in your sump) it is nice to have as a) food production (copepods, amphipods) for some species, and as a place for oxy-producing algaes like cheatomorpha. Yes, it will sop up some phosphate, but the food and oxygen end up more important.
There are several ways to make a sump 'larger', and that includes an exterior pump with a bulkhead connector, and an exterior skimmer with the body outside.
With mine, I have 20 gallons of a 30 gallon sump as fuge, which contains moss, coral rubble, and at the moment (I'm experimenting) one of those expanded ceramic blocks. My return pump is bulkheaded on (exterior pumps can be noisy, so consider that) and my skimmer, a Coralife 200 venturi, has its pump in the end chamber, right beside the return pipe. To prevent spitting water or overflow common with skimmers, I have airline hose eyelashes on the two siphon break/air access nipples that are on the body, and aim them back into the sump. If it spits, it spits into the sump, not onto my floor.
I light the sump with a shoplight and a 6500 k (not watt!!!!) daylight flood.
It's far from pretty, but it produces amphipods enough, and those elastic little critters do survive a ride to the main tank: my fish up there probably live in hope of one.
Most of all it gives me an easy place to dose and measure, even to do water changes (dip there, put in a pitcher).
That's how I do it.
There are several ways to make a sump 'larger', and that includes an exterior pump with a bulkhead connector, and an exterior skimmer with the body outside.
With mine, I have 20 gallons of a 30 gallon sump as fuge, which contains moss, coral rubble, and at the moment (I'm experimenting) one of those expanded ceramic blocks. My return pump is bulkheaded on (exterior pumps can be noisy, so consider that) and my skimmer, a Coralife 200 venturi, has its pump in the end chamber, right beside the return pipe. To prevent spitting water or overflow common with skimmers, I have airline hose eyelashes on the two siphon break/air access nipples that are on the body, and aim them back into the sump. If it spits, it spits into the sump, not onto my floor.
I light the sump with a shoplight and a 6500 k (not watt!!!!) daylight flood.
It's far from pretty, but it produces amphipods enough, and those elastic little critters do survive a ride to the main tank: my fish up there probably live in hope of one.
Most of all it gives me an easy place to dose and measure, even to do water changes (dip there, put in a pitcher).
That's how I do it.
