Canister filter or Refugium?

I have a very nice coral display tank with a 30gal refugium underneath it and the water is perfect but I just got a 75gal tank and I want to put just a couple of larger fish in it maybe a dog face puffer and something else but I was wondering if I could just go with a good canister filter instead of a refugium? I'm just going to have a couple of fish in it and a bunch of live rock and sand, no coral will be in the new tank. Any idea or suggestions will be appreciated thanks

 

Canister filters are fine if you keep up on the maintence. If you slack on this they can become nitrate factories.

 

A canister filter would do fine on a FOWLR. A wet dry would do an even better job though due to the anaerobic areas in the bio-media. either way be sure you also add some power heads in the display to get good flow through the rock and to get detritus into the filter.

 

Thanks for the help! As you can tell I have no experience with these canister filters. Just an after thought do they also require a protein skimmer?

 

They are never REQUIRED, but with large predatory fish I would definitely recommend one.

 

I second u for the wet dry for a fish only!

 

I would do a wet dry with protein skimmer. Kind of a berlin hybrid