All In One Saltwater Aquarium

[vlangel]

I have been keeping reef tanks for 25 years and was intimidated by sumped systems way back. At the lfs that i worked at I moved into taking care of their tank accounts which helped me understand tanks with sumps. I believe both have merit. Hiding equipment is a big plus for a sump. However if you have minimal equipment then the ease and simplicity of an AIO is very attractive.
My current tank is an Aqueon regular 56g column with a HOB overflow box plumbed to a basement 30 gallon XH sump. I wanted a basement sump when I did a lot of water changes for my seahorses. Now I do not keep seahorses any more and have toyed with removing the sump. If it did not house a rehomed clownfish and a rogue pistol shrimp I probably would in a heartbeat because my softie/LPS macroalgae tank requires very little water changes. I could just replace the HOB overflow with a HOB Aquaclear pump with really not much change to the appearance of the tank. I found when I had seahorses that my coral looked just as well without a heater, they just grew slower which would be a plus in my crowded tank. If I wanted the tank warmed just a little I could probably put the heater in the back chamber of the Aquaclear.

 

[exnisstech]

I had an aio for while but gave it away. It was a jbj but I can't remember which one. Trying to do anything in the back chamber was a hassle because it was too small. Maybe a larger one wouldn't be so bad but I'll just keep my sumps. When starting a new tank I like to fill the sump with live rock and get an instant cycle along with pretty much avoiding the uglies. I couldn't do that with an aio. This is the sump of my most recent start up