Am I that lucky? No skimmer since April.

[austinsdad]

Some of you know what I've got in my tank. 72g reef tank w/a decent amount of fish. Never added them too fast and QT'd when I did.

Anyway, back in late April, I was having water leak issues, along with the noisiness of the Top Fathom skimmer. We were haveing a houseful of folks after my Dad's funeral and I decided to unplug the skimmer for a bit.

Well, a bit has become 3 12/months now. The fish are all doing fine. All the coral is flourishing (especially that darned xenia), mushrooms multiplying, etc. I did have a bout of cyano for a bit, but I cleaned it all up, cut back on feeding, and re-established my 5g HOB fuge (Thanks Rev and Ellisz for the chaeto!).

From what I remember reading in the past, I guess it's not unusual to have the correct balance of critters and rock ('bout 125+ lbs) to do the filtration. Pls do not ask me what the water params are. Haven't checked those in a few months either (OK, I'll check'm tonight), but I did have my salt creep up to about 1.025 recently. That's on the way back down too.

Anyway, my LFS owner buddy calls me lucky. I guess I'll consider accepting that - at least SOME of it.

 

[Phyl]

I've been running without a skimmer since about that long as well. The one in my wet/dry has never really performed well and then it stopped performing at all for a while. My system seems to be holding its own. I wouldn't even hazard a guess at how many pounds of live rock are in the tank. Seems like I've been constantly adding more (some with this coral, some with that one, etc...). Must be close to 200# in my system (I'm sure of 160).

 

[austinsdad]

I love the sound...or lack thereof. 8)

 

[mykpoz]

my asm skimmer is dead silent sitting next to the mag18 return pump

 

[haus]

I don't run a skimmer on my tank either. I have 62 lbs of lr in a 55 gal system, 3 ph, and a fluval 304. My params are 0/0/0, just tested yesterday. I seem to have a large amount of green coraline growing rather than purple and pinks :x , but the water quality is good. I thought 1.025 is good for inverts in the tank. Mine is usually between 1.024 and 1.025 since I added my cleaner shrimp. I would like to add a skimmer, but I don't have a sump and my skimmer is a hang in tank and It is crowded enough with the filter and phs. Could be just luck though