Hi there! You most definitely can, but advise would be to have more area in your filtration chamber (sump, HOBs, refugium) so that you could house more of the beneficial bacteria which would break down your ammonia to nitrate, and subsequently from nitrate to nitrogen.
That being said, I think you could do with a HOB if your term of basic coral would be macroalgae(s), which serve a more general purpose of nutrient export from within the water column. More-often-than-not, you see those sump systems etc, because the purpose is to hide the filtration from within the display, and to add more components into the filtration process such as reactors, bacteria housing media(s) etc.