Going without a skimmer?

3dees · Sep 13, 2015

I hear the same thing about sumps. I can't have a sump on my 120 gal. reef because of severe back issues, yet my tank is doing fine going on two years. sure going skimmerless can work, especially if you have only a few fish and feed lightly. personally, it's one piece of equipment I wouldn't be without. it's not like it's going to hurt anything and it certainly isn't useless or a waste of money.

jared graves · Sep 13, 2015

3dees said:
I hear the same thing about sumps. I can't have a sump on my 120 gal. reef because of severe back issues, yet my tank is doing fine going on two years. sure going skimmerless can work, especially if you have only a few fish and feed lightly. personally, it's one piece of equipment I wouldn't be without. it's not like it's going to hurt anything and it certainly isn't useless or a waste of money.

And I would be the one to tell you sumps are an essential piece of equipment but if it works for you it works for you

gaz · Sep 13, 2015

Yeah that's the flip side I suppose if you've got a sump then you've got the option of a fuge if not a skimmers the only way to go really

ReefTankRebel · Sep 13, 2015

I have no sump or skimmer LOL

gaz · Sep 13, 2015

Do you have any macro in your DT?

Jeffys · Sep 13, 2015

I've done a ATS I worked great!

watchguy123 · Sep 13, 2015

jared graves said:
I have gone the skimmer route before. I had a reef octopus rated for up 300gal on my 90gal and it was fine it pulled junk out etc but I had a hard time keeping cal, all, etc up at there levels so I stopped running it added extra live rock and never looked back. I don't think my animals are under cared for my coral definitely grows fast and my fish I haven't noticed any difference in.

jared graves said:
Multiple ways to do the same thing but I will give you running a Skimmer is a tried and true method you can't go wrong.

I'm not sure I follow this. You believe the skimmer adversely effected calcium and alkalinity levels. And secondly, as a result you stopped skimming but advocate skimming as tried and true. I am sure I am missing something.

Regardless, in my experience, skimming does pull out a lot of gunk (some detritus but not really sure how much--I think socks do this pretty well though), DOC's ( I think 30% is the skimmers limit or so), and aerates the water pretty darn well.

But I guess the real question: is it necessary. I don't know. Thought sand was necessary a while ago. Is it possible to compensate for its absence, perhaps. I've run a skimmer and always viewed it necessary. But I've also thought water changes were necessary and there are those that don't.

So would the tank succeed with compensatory changes. Would there be an increase in the bacteria inhabiting the water column eating up all that extra gunk and DOCs or would the water just get increased level of nutrients and pollutants. Would oxygenation decrease and what would happen to pH levels. All of this is interesting but I don't think I would want to be the one to experiment. Keep us informed about what you do and how it works out

Harold Green · Sep 13, 2015

Jared says he couldn't keep cal up with a skimmer running. I guess it could strip some but I had to hold off adding cal to my tank when the levels got too high and I'm running a large skimmer that's removing at least a half gallon of gunk every week.

ReefTankRebel · Sep 13, 2015

I can answer that for you , No a skimmer isn't a necessity lol

jared graves · Sep 13, 2015

watchguy123 said:
I'm not sure I follow this. You believe the skimmer adversely effected calcium and alkalinity levels. And secondly, as a result you stopped skimming but advocate skimming as tried and true. I am sure I am missing something.

Regardless, in my experience, skimming does pull out a lot of gunk (some detritus but not really sure how much--I think socks do this pretty well though), DOC's ( I think 30% is the skimmers limit or so), and aerates the water pretty darn well.

But I guess the real question: is it necessary. I don't know. Thought sand was necessary a while ago. Is it possible to compensate for its absence, perhaps. I've run a skimmer and always viewed it necessary. But I've also thought water changes were necessary and there are those that don't.

So would the tank succeed with compensatory changes. Would there be an increase in the bacteria inhabiting the water column eating up all that extra gunk and DOCs or would the water just get increased level of nutrients and pollutants. Would oxygenation decrease and what would happen to pH levels. All of this is interesting but I don't think I would want to be the one to experiment. Keep us informed about what you do and how it works out

Sorry should have explained better. I stopped skimming because it was lowering essential element levels as well as cal and alk. Could this have been compensated for by more dosing absolutely.