NPX Biopellets or refugium, or both.

Hi all I am new to saltwater tanks just need some advice. My tank is a 90 gallon it has been set up for 1 month 12 days it has 90-100 pounds of live rock 2 Ocellaris Clownfish and 8 hermit crabs. My water perm are as follows.

PH 8.3
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 10
Phos 0.25
Spec gravity 1.024-1.025

My setup is as follows
Eshopps Deluxe Pro Series Reef Sump DLX-100
Reef Octopus Extreme XS160 In Sump Skimmer
2 Koralia Evolution 750 gph Water Pumps
48 in. Nova Extreme Pro T5 HO Lighting Fixture - (6) 54 watt lamps]
Chemipure thru a hang on canister filter

Should I do npx bioplastics with the two little fishes reactor, or a 10 gallon refugium to lower the nitrates or both. I would like to start adding coral soon.
I also have some brown spots on the glass not sure what it is yet but im assuming it has to do with the nitrates. Thanks for the help.

 

I run both mainly for the pods to grow and bread. Also I threw chato in there with a lite and It is growing so I say it never hurts to do both as the do the same thing different way! As you may find the chato or other micro or macro might not grow just depends but I would do both as u can always use the fuge for a angler or mantis shrimp


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antole

a tank set up as new as this, will probably just be hitting the diatom stage
which could be the brown dot areas you are seeing

these typically last 4 - 8 weeks and get a lot worse before they dissapear
diatoms use silicates to construct their skeletons , but once the excess silicates associated with a new tank are utilised they do fade away compeletly and your tank will briefly return to looking new again

next comes the various other algae forms or the green varieties

what do you have in the sump?

10ppm nitrate is not terrible by any means and a large number of soft corals would be perfectly happy in those conditions

the trick now is to make sure they are controlled and do not escalate


pellets or fuge
their are supporters for both of these methods of controlling Nitrate and Phosphate

which is more effective, depends on bio load, type of creatures being kept, type and amount of macro algae used in fuge etc

both should help to reduce nutrients

 

Thanks for the help

In my sump I still have the bioballs that came with it in there but have considered taking them out and replacing with live rock but not sure yet.

The tank is an in wall tank and everything is in a 10'x6' ft room so I can fit a larger refugium in there than the 10 gallon or do you think that's good?

Thanks again for the help.

 

I just installed a biopellet reactor and I already had a refugium with cheato.The one concern I have is that I may totally strip the water of nutrients and my LPS might not like that too much but I felt I had no other choice to lower nitrates.Im tired of doing HUGE water changes.....

My trates were hitting 20-40 ppm