Hello,
I'm relatively new to salt water tanks, I've had my 29 for about 7 months now. I'm looking at a 40 or 75 gallon reef tank with a sump and have a few questions. I originally wanted to run a skimmerless system with a lot of live rock, cheato, Carbon and GFO. I wanted to have the best pod production possible in a system and a skimmer just didn't seem right. So here is my questions.

In the sump is it advantageous to have a lot of live rock and rubble for pods? I was also thinking of possibly putting a peacock mantis in my sump. Would the live rock help pod production in my sump?

What kind of clean up crew do I need in my main tank? I know there are recommendations for CUC's if you are using a regular sump but what are the recommendations for a CUC for a ATS system?

Do I need to or can I feed my system Phytoplankton? I don't know how the ATS works with Phyto. Do I need to add Rotifers to my system or do the pods get big enough?

Thanks

Lucas