I am needing a protium Skimmer for a 16 gallon bio cube?

[reefiniteasy]

water changes can EASILY manage a biocube 14/16 and is FAR more effective than the nano skimmers that will work on them. The biocube 14 holds 10g of water empty (and the 16 is only 2" taller, give it another 0.5 gallons of you want). If you have sand and rock in them a 5g water change is over 50% and will drain the tank past the hallway mark. Doing this weekly is far more effective, in fact TOO effective as it easily bottomed my nitrates out (also better make sure your salt alkalinity matches your reef if you doing frequent changes this large). The skimmer shouldn't be what's keeping your reef afloat. ANY reef aquarium should be able to pull their skimmer without catastrophy and at worse slight modification in water change/feeding habits. Live sand, real liverock (from the ocean and then years in an established reef) and a media bag with ,250ml of Seachem matrix is my biocube 14 filtration. I have 2 fish (clown and Springers damsel) even though any fish in a 14 reef I consider high bioload.

I am at the point where I believe a modification to anything I have going on will cause problems. (Changed my rockscape recently and had issues.) Your experience with water changes being plenty is just that, your experience. As mine with depending on a skimmer in addition to my weekly 5 gallon change is my experience. Could my skimmer be too much, I don’t know, not willing to find out.

The OP asked for a recommendation for a skimmer. Will this solve an algae problem, don’t know. I just think to tell someone they don’t need something while knowing nothing about their tank is not a good idea.

I don’t even recall the OP saying how often she does water changes, maybe I’m mistaken. Maybe she doesn’t do them often or can’t for whatever reason.

The idea that nano’s don’t need this or that is situational.

Side note: If my previous comments were perceived as rude or being short, I do apologize. Totally not my intention.

 

[reefiniteasy]

I disagree.

Well I am not just making this up, this is from anecdotal experience. I have 2 small tanks that have never had skimmers and one of which is biocube 32. I have managed both the tanks with large and frequent water changes. Putting a skimmer in a bio cube is a nightmare, if you have a 16 gallon tank and do a 5 to 8 gallon water change every 2 weeks I believe it would export the same as a small crappy skimmer would. I am not saying skimmer aren't great, I have one on my main tank and I love it.

To be honest, you say you’ve never had a skimmer in your smaller tanks. How do you know they wouldn’t have a positive impact? Never trying and claiming it’s not necessary...

I don’t know.

Neither skimmer I suggested, which you don’t have, are not crappy. How do you call something crappy that you haven’t used.

 

[OrangeCountyReefer]

To be honest, you say you’ve never had a skimmer in your smaller tanks. How do you know they wouldn’t have a positive impact? Never trying and claiming it’s not necessary...

I don’t know.

Neither skimmer I suggested, which you don’t have, are not crappy. How do you call something crappy that you haven’t used.

I should have worded what I said better. I ment I tried using skimmers in the beginning with the tanks and ended up getting rid of them completely and they never had skimmers since. Look at other people replying to this thread, they agree with what I am saying. Skimmers in smaller tanks suck, Especially in biocubes. Who wants a skimmer phyically in there main display making a bubble factory. I removed the lid on mine and getting one in the back was terrible. I bought an Aquamaxx HOB 1.5 and it sucked, didn’t pull anything. Had the cora life one too and it was worse.

 

[OrangeCountyReefer]

I use a Tunze 9001 DC in my display. It kicks the occasional stream of micro bubbles when it first turns on but it’s incredible. However, I do not use the lid on my BioCube.

You have a beautiful tank too. Removing the lid and using a tunze in the display will definitely work but I was just trying to give this guy another direction if didn’t wanna remove his lid and then have to upgrade his light. And I agree if you have always had the skimmer I would not remove it at this point, major changes to tanks will always mess things up. So if you have achieved what you have to this point with that I would keep rocking it. But you definitely can manage smaller tanks with frequent changes I can say that from experience. It’s all love here just a good little friendly debate

 

[reefiniteasy]

I should have worded what I said better. I ment I tried using skimmers in the beginning with the tanks and ended up getting rid of them completely and they never had skimmers since. Look at other people replying to this thread, they agree with what I am saying. Skimmers in smaller tanks suck, Especially in biocubes. Who wants a skimmer phyically in there main display making a bubble factory. I removed the lid on mine and getting one in the back was terrible. I bought an Aquamaxx HOB 1.5 and it sucked, didn’t pull anything. Had the cora life one too and it was worse.

Thank you for the clarification. Is the skimmer in the display ideal. Of course not. Would I prefer it not there, sure. But in my experience it works great in my tank. I do a 5 gallon water change every week and my skimmer produces a good 2 inches worth of skimmate every week. So we have two totally different experiences, which is great. But again, it’s situational. I wouldn’t give my skimmer up. I never said you were wrong, like I said from the beginning, it’s based on the tank and Bio-load. I’d be interested to hear your experience about the AquaMaxx. Almost bought it once.

 

[Daddy-o]

We have a BioCube with a skimmer in the back compartment. It is small with a wooden airstone. It doesnt remove gallons of skimmate, but it does remove crud from the water.

 

[stanlalee]

I am at the point where I believe a modification to anything I have going on will cause problems. (Changed my rockscape recently and had issues.) Your experience with water changes being plenty is just that, your experience. As mine with depending on a skimmer in addition to my weekly 5 gallon change is my experience. Could my skimmer be too much, I don’t know, not willing to find out.

The OP asked for a recommendation for a skimmer. Will this solve an algae problem, don’t know. I just think to tell someone they don’t need something while knowing nothing about their tank is not a good idea.

I don’t even recall the OP saying how often she does water changes, maybe I’m mistaken. Maybe she doesn’t do them often or can’t for whatever reason.

The idea that nano’s don’t need this or that is situational.

Side note: If my previous comments were perceived as rude or being short, I do apologize. Totally not my intention.

Well sure we got off topic a little but it's also flagged emergency with the end desire to lower dissolved nutrients and help solve an algae problem. whether water changes do that and lower nutrients effectively isn't even debatable. If you have 80ppm of nitrates we know a 50% water change of zero nitrate water instantly cut that in half. We are talking a tank with 6-7 gallons of net volume. Very doable. If that kind of export (which I consider relatively extreme) once a week doesn't lower and maintain lower nutrients, exportation simply isn't the problem. A skimmer won't fix it.
I think the point trying to be made by us nay sayers of a skimmer on a biocube 14/16 is the rear chamber is too small for a good skimmer, most people don't want a skimmer IN the display and water changes are a viable option as any in terms of effectiveness. Export is export.
On a side note my personal experience is algae issues resolve themselves with tank maturity unless your grossly overfeeding/stocking.

 

[Julie Reagan]

I use a Tunze 9001 DC in my display. It kicks the occasional stream of micro bubbles when it first turns on but it’s incredible. However, I do not use the lid on my BioCube.

What kind of light did u get for your bio cube so I can take the lid off mine

 

[reefiniteasy]

What kind of light did u get for your bio cube so I can take the lid off mine

I used a Kessil a80 and now I use a Kessil a160.

 

[Justanano]

Nice not even close to an emergency

 

[Wannabereefvet]

I use a Tunze 9001 DC in my display. It kicks the occasional stream of micro bubbles when it first turns on but it’s incredible. However, I do not use the lid on my BioCube.

Your tank looks great. Personally I would just do a larger water change then feed less going forward. If phosphates are high that will have leeched into the rock and take a little while to work itself out.

If you don’t want to feed less, instead of a skimmer I’d say use an algae scrubber. You can find them in all sizes now and once that gets seeded it will remove the algae growth from your rock.

You could also try letting inverts or fish do the work for you. Lawnmower Blenny, a small tiger conch... if there’s algae, a tiger conch will find it and knock over anything in its path to get it. They’re annoying but fantastic at what they do.