To sump or not to sump? what do you do?

Ive been reading the Reefkeeping made easy thread, front to back tonight. Im done for now. gotta goto work in the morning, im on page 25 took me 3 hours for all that. im kindve getting the feeling there is no need for a sump other then to hide equipment and add to the water quantity. what are your guys's thoughts on this? I have this 30ish gal tank I was going to use, but now im just not feeling the same way about a sump as I did 3 hours ago. from what I just read, my tank is fine the way it is (with the exception of not having a skimmer) so why complicate things? im not going to keep SPS or LPS so I don't need to do all the fancy chem work that may or may not need to be done. im really only into the softies in saltwater, all the rest are kindve ugly and boring to me. I guess the only advantage to having a sump would be to hide the skimmer & heater and to have a lower place to add water to instead of raising it 5 feet to pour cuz we all know im getting old (my bday is next sunday fml)



is there really any other advantage to having a sump other then these few benefits? ive come to realize my sand bed will do nothing for me in a filtration way and is just for asthetics, and ill end up having sufficient LR in the display to take care of my bioload so there is no need to put sand or LR in the sump. (I should probably share some knowledge with my best friend as he has 4-5in sand in his sump and apparently he has not been reading the right stuff if at all, he also only skims the top of his sand when cleaning IF he cleans it at all)



that is it, happy Friday and if you live in or around St.Louis come to piggy's barbq, full slab Friday, full slab of ribs, every Friday, all year long 14.99!!