skimmerles people lets here ya!:)

[Zack]

Hey
So I have been seeing quite a few people who are skimmerles. Any reason you guys have to being that way. I don't run a skimmer on mine due that I don't feel it to be good to place one in the refugium. I was thinking hang on the back but i have seen that these can be quite disapointing comnpared to in sump ones.

So what about all you other skimmerles people?

 

[kmk2307]

Hi Zack,

I'm planning a 75 gallon reef tank where my only filtration will be a refugium of chaetomorpha and caulerpa prolifera. Hopefully I'll be able to have a lot of phyto and zooplankton being produced in the fuge that will be a tasty treat for the corals. I do plan on using the skimmer from my other tank during the curing of the live rock to help save as much of the life on it as possible, though.

Kevin

 

[Zack]

ahhh very cool. My refugium has plenty of treats for my fish and corals. Plus there always seems to be somone who will want your calurpa when it starts really growing and i enjoy being able to give that away

 

[Guest]

Skimmers grab DOC's out of the water. DOC's are caused by left over food waste, fish waste etc... This is why we use them... It extracts this out of the water column.. If you do not feed too much, and detritus or DOC's are low, then routine water changes can take place of a skimmer, because you are reducing the DOC by that means IMO much more efficiently. Now, on a 150 gal and above? it can be debateable whether or not to skim. It would all depend really on your bio load and how often you would have to do water changes, that would determine to skim or not to skim.. It has become more of a personal decision these days...

I am seeing a lot more people these days going to the non-skimmer method and the results are just as good as with a skimmer.

I run mine about a week out of a month or two, and I rarely get a full cup of goo. Water changes are the norm...

I believe I read somewhere a while back that it was thought at one time that skimmers would put an end to our frequent water changes...

I believe that whether you skim or not, regular water changes are needed...

 

[Zack]

Water changes are important yes, but I have also seen many people take the route of not doing water changes and just using top off and adding idione and other chemicles. My bio load has always been small so that is another reason I don't use a skimmer.

 

[Guest]

Water changes are important yes, but I have also seen many people take the route of not doing water changes and just using top off and adding idione and other chemicles.

There is no way to actually reinvent the wheel so to speak. No skimmer, and no water changes, + adding chemicals and supplements is doomed for disaster in the long run... The toxicity levels will continue to grow until it reaches high levels, and things will start dying, and cause problems...IMHO

I guess that is another topic of discussion though...

 

[Zack]

Yea thats a new topic but want to talk about it, but back to the skimmer issue, who else is skimmerles?

 

[BillyZ]

i'm skimmerless... but that's cause I lack appropriate funds to purchase one )

 

[Zack]

Thats how i started off, but always a good reason

 

[Salt4Us]

We are skimmerless in our 40, we don't have any bioload though and are planning on using the liverock and live sand that is in our sump/fuge to act as our filter, we also plan on getting macro algae for the sump/fuge to aid in the water quality also, so far so good can't wait to get fish and we already have coraline algae on our rocks which was seeded from our other tank. We don't run a skimmer on our 5 gallon either, just live rock and sand and a small power head and hob filter with no media, everything doing well in there too, just one small blennie lives in there.

 

[Zack]

How ofton are you doing water changes?

 

[Salt4Us]

We do a 10% water change weekly on all 3 tanks, it has worked out really well for us.

 

[ReefRaff]

I'll never run a tank without a skimmer, as a matter of fact, I recently purchased a aqua-c skimmer HOB, and it pulls more junk out of the water in two days than My in-sump did in 5 months.

an excerpt from Fenners new book states this-

Protien skimming is pivotal for many Aquarium systems.
Even though one does naot absolutly need a protien skimmerto have a succesful marine aquarium,Most folks will discover that it is categoricallythe most effective and reliable means of nutrient export (especialy for begginners)

He also seems to consider it a natural filter, that is considering the amount of sea foam washed ashore.

He, and I strongly encourage the use of a "Good" skimmer.

 

[Zack]

So do many top experts, but some just keep on going without them.

 

[ReefRaff]

well look at my gallery and see the photos with the red cyno, which I happend to have untill one day prior to skimming. and compare them to my recent photo's. A blind man could tell the differance.

but some just keep on going without them.

I would not be one of those people, I also would not consider myself to be smarter than the experts.

just my .02

 

[fishfreek]

I suppose you could say I run skimmerless.

Feed spairingly and regular water changes.

 

[Zack]

My refugium also has stopped my cyano

 

[BillyZ]

yep.. fuge, skimmer, water changes...


guess you could say, "there's more than one way to skim a tank"


ok, i'll go hide now :?

 

[Zack]

Yep there certainly is more then one way

 

[HoopsGuru]

I have ditched the skimmer some time ago in favor of macroalgae and soft coral harvesting (namely Xenia). IMO, if you don't run a skimmer, water changes are only essential if you don't have some other means of nutrient export (by that I mean regular water changes for export, I routinely do small water changes in favor of dosing additives). It is not an instant recipe for cyano or any other problem to not use a skimmer unless you don't use some other sort of method or overstock your tank.