Fish in my sump?

[larrynews]

Is there any advantage to having a few fish in my sump? Its remote and it’s around 125gallons of water, houses my skimmer return pumps and a small refuge. I would need to make sure the return pumps won’t suck them up, I was wondering if there was an advantage. I have sock filters which catches a lot of the food that goes thru the over flows. Look for thoughts. Thanks. Thanks 6 plus years old.

 

[enderg60]

Not really. Fish would eat some food but would poop the same amount to just go into the socks anyway. The sump is for fish that need a time out, not long term.

From what your saying it sounds like you want fleece roller to catch all that stuff without dealing with socks.

 

[gill]

That is my precise setup as well: 180 gallon sump in basement, system about 6 years old. I have used the sump for time-out. I have occasionally thought about putting things down there permanently, but I am not sure of the point. I have fleece socks, so it just means I'd have to regularly feed a second tank, which is a pain long term. Yes, you can keep fish down there, but I've yet to come up with a reason to do it other than temporarily.

 

[chaples55]

Like others have said I use it mostly to keep critters that misbehave in the display tank. Currently have a Tuxedo urchin down there that was eating my GSP as well as an Arrow Crab that was getting a bit too grabby with my fish. I've also temporarily kept aggressive fish down there like a tomato clown.

Unless it's to serve a specific purpose, I don't see any advantage to keeping a fish down there. Perhaps if there was a specific pest you wanted to control?

Another reason I could see is if you have a display refugium, but then it's not really a refugium since the fish will eat the pods.