Do I need a refugium?

Newbie here. After hering so much talk about sumps and refugium in this hobby. Makes me wonder if I have to have one to do a full Coral reef tank? I have a 46g. However (to make a long story short) I have no way to put a refugium underneath my tank. Becuase of the location of my tank, any equipment I have will have to be HOB. I have 2 HOB aqua clear filters. And plan to get a HOB skimmer.

 

ya there a really good thing to have and plenty of sites have HOB refugium for very cheap

 

They are nice as they provide a place for zooplankton to breed without predation and you can also put macroalgaes in there to lower phosphates, nitrates, and Iron. However, you don't actually need one.

 

You already have the stuff to make a HOB refugium. Just turn those 2 aquaclear HOB filters into mini fuge's. You can find out how to make them on the internet. You can get some cheap lights at a hardware store to put on top of them and call it a day. I have this type of fuge on 2 of my tanks with good results. And that skimmer will help a lot.