LOL that mines bigger than yours grow off proves nothing. Slightly different frags in differently stocked, lighted and equipped systems with varying stocks of fish (and lets not forget additives) is a joke for anything other than friendly competition. Even taking what I read with a grain of salt to say one is stomping the other (because of skimmer or not) is a big stretch. Yes you can run w/o a skimmer but if you read it says about 98% of tanks should probably have them. I'll rely more on 25+ years of hands on reef keeping and actual studies from people I trust to decide what works and what doesn't and the fact that the majority of people with much of any experience agree. Yeah some places like Unique have cut back on skimmer use in mostly coral only systems because phosphates and nitrates got to low (and yeah low nutrient is out of fashion for now). I certainly haven't seen any successful real aquaculture not using skimmers. Funny that even the grow sponsor BC uses skimmers (and has some of the best frags available) and is one who pushes/sells Deltec's. Absolute different circumstance though from the average hobbyist with heavily fed, perhaps questionably maintained, tanks well stocked particularly with fish. For most no skimmer would mean a huge uptick in nitrate production where some would turn around and spend the money they would have spent on a skimmer on yet another system to reduce nitrates or maybe just fail. If I was running an Acro only tank with maybe a couple fish for cleanup and to provide nutrients for the Acro's then yes maybe I would go skimmerless. Perfectly fine competition between hobbyists but it does not now or in the end remotely prove anything as far as no skimmer is better than having one. There's something not quite right about your tank based on your numbers. You don't not run a skimmer and have low nitrate and phosphate w/o some other mechanism (in your case seems to be a large fuge) to keep it in check. That is of course unless the tank your using is newer with new water and/or you have little or no stock and your not feeding anything. If that's the case that's hardly a practical application. Maybe just your pics but little sign of coralline growth but algae, maybe some dinos and algae bubbles maybe indicating a bloom of cyano or maybe other. More signs of a newer tank or numbers that are off. I looked for a pic of your tank that shows something actually living in it but didn't see anything other than two frags on a rock. You did mention a couple fish you put in but that's it in a 265g tank?
