skimmer vs Marine Pure biofilter media in aio chamber 25 lagoon?

[Liam's tank]

What would be the best use of the AIO chamber on the IM 25g lagoon? A skimmer or a mesh bag filled with Marine Pure Biofilter media spheres?

 

[homer1475]

Well they both do 2 different things, so it's not really a comparison of one or the other.

Personally if I had enough live rock in the display, I would go for a skimmer.

 

[Liam's tank]

I guess what I'm asking is which would be more beneficial. I have just one chamber available. I do have live rock & sand so I think you just answered my question, thank you!

 

[dangles]

I had the IM 50 AIO for about a year. No skimmer, but I did run a refugium in one of the back chambers. I had to get a little inventive but it worked well (you can find a link to that build thread in the first post of my current build thread).

I decided not to go with a skimmer in that tank because all I read about was how hard it was to find a good/effective nano-skimmer. Most everything I read said with small (nano) tanks like that it's really rare that a good WC schedule isn't enough to handle whatever bioload you put in there.

Obviously DYOR. I'm decently new so my info mostly comes from reading