Sponge filters or no?

[Rick Fite]

Hello, I have a 20 gallon nano reef, with chambers along the back. The first contains the heater and skimmer, the next two contain sponges and the last, the return pump. I'm thinking about doing away with the sponges and replacing with chaeto and maybe some kind of ceramic bio media? In fact, I've already started this, have chaeto in the second chamber with a focused light on opposite light cycle. I guess my question really is around those sponges. The aquarium came with those, and they're part of the "design, " if you will. Am I risking anything by going away from those?

 

[N.Sreefer]

The most important thing is not removing all of the sponges at the same time and as your removing sponges add biomedia and wait for it to seed before removing another sponge. Basically your removing some of your biofilter every time your removing a sponge so you don't want to do it all at once. Other than that the only issue I can see you running into is changing how water flows through the filtration compartments. When I had my 13.5 AIO set up removing the sponge in the center chamber changed how water flowed through the filtration compartments and I had to switch around some of my media.

 

[GARRIGA]

Matrix topped with chaeto exposed to a light source should work. More surface area than sponges without the need to often clean sponges that will over time clog.