Do I really need a skimmer???

[+Mel in Elgin]

I am setting up a 40g breeder with 40 lbs live rock (another 10 lbs in sump) and 40 lbs live sand. I do plan to add about 20 lbs more live rock to the DT soon. As far as livestock I plan on having mostly LPS coral and only two or three fish.

All advice/opinions appreciated...

Thanks,

Melissa

[pbnj]

The short answer is "no", but that really depends on several other things:

How often do you plan on doing water-changes?

Is the tank filled with base-rock, newly cycled live-rock, or old live-rock?

How tightly packed will the rock be, i.e., will there be good flow or can detritus build-up?

How much do you plan on feeding?

What kinds of food do you plan on feeding?

What kind of sand will you use for the sandbed?

How deep will the sandbed be?

These will all contribute to nitrate/phosphate levels....it's just a matter of how much (without a skimmer).

[troypt]

I haven't run a skimmer in ~5 years

Troy

[offroadodge]

if u decide to go with one i hve PM redline 150 that would work fine. deoending on the answers to pbnj ?s determines alot.

[Timfish]

No. You need to keep an eye on your phosphates, calcium, alk and pH. You don't even need to do water changes. Fossa and Nilsen's "The Modern Coral Reef Aquarium Aquarium" Vol 3 pg 368 details a beautiful reef aquarium that's using an undergravel filter, no protien skimming, no water changes, no calcium supplements and is stocked fish that were bred and raised in the tank. It does use a denitrating filter and a tidal system, the tank is 94 L and has 1000 L/H "internal water movement"

[Toxiq Reef]

I've gone 7months without a water change, +1 timfish, monitoring is everything

[Mr Cob]

I've been running a 55g LPS and softies only with lots of live rock and a large fuge in the sump...no skimmer. Great results but I started neglecting my water changes and got hair algae in it....bumped up the water changes and hair algae went away.

So, like others already posted; no, you don't need a skimmer if you keep regular water changes, light fish load, light feedings and keep lps, softies.

[troypt]

I didn't do a water change for 2 years, though now I do about 20% once a quarter. I don't run a skimmer, no mechanical filtration. I have live rock and a fuge with macro. I do keep SPS, LPS, only a few softies, and an RBTA.

Troy

[caferacermike]

It's been since January that I unplugged my skimmer. I haven't done a water change in over a year. My tnak is fully stocked, my corals are growing so fast now I don't know what to do with them. And yes you've seen the pictures in the for sale threads. I also top off with untreated tap water.

The thing is that I've had my tnak for at least 7 years now. I know it inside and out. We've been through it all together. I could spot a problem a week before it will actually happen. I wouldn't recommend my methods to anyone. It's just to dangerous to preach it.

Keep in mind that my tnak is fully established and not newly set up.

If you are starting out with a new tnak and don't have loads of experience than I say yes, buy a skimmer. It will make your life a lot easier and will help prevent issues. I believe 100% that skimmers and metal halide lamps are the 2 single reasons that people were able to domesticate this hobby. For about 4 decades prior folks dabbled in salt water. Corals were a huge no-no and even in the beginning it was strictly limited to softies. The mid 80's began to see significant changes and improvements. I think it is very important to set up a new tnak with the best equipment, best intentions, and the highest quality livestock possible. After it has been set up and stable for a few years you can begin to wean it off all the "extras". I'd say to make your life easier, and to have the best possible outcome, a large sump with a good skimmer and return pump and beginners basic equipment.

Once you are proficient then you might dabble in "exotic" set ups to prove just how awesome you are. Might try a Jaubert Plenum, super deep sand bed method, exotic algae sumps, under gravel plenum system, etc... but prove to yourself that you can keep a basic known set up running and healthy before trying to simplify your tnak.

[Kingfish]

I agree with Mike, if its your first Rodeo, a skimmer will probably help you avoid nutrient build up and algae out breaks.

On the flip side, we have a few clients that have never had a working skimmer on their tank in 5 + years and the tanks thrive.

IMO, you can't go wrong with the Bubble Magus NAC-QQ hang on the back skimmer ( if you don't have a sump) it retails for $109. I believe River City and AquaTek carry them.

Good Luck with your decision.

[Meteorflower]

I love my Bubble Magus

[Timfish]

For the record I credit my success to small weekly water changes and growing most of my own corals under lighting conditions I'm familiar with. (I estimate 80 - 90% of my corals I've grown in my tanks.) I strongly feel close monitoring of the ecosystem is critical to success irregardless of methodology used . For the newbie this means getting test kits and spending time running tests AND learning your animals behaviours, fish and corals alike. But like Caferacermike, PBNJ and others have said either here or in other posts once you get familiar with your tank and your animals you may be quite comfortable using the ol' eyeball.

I would agree Caferacermike is for the most part correct regarding skimmers and and to a lesser extent metal halide lighting being relied on by hobbyists when reef keeping grew in the 90's, but there have always been people who have been successful not using either. Lee Cheng Eng's approach, which I first read about in the late '80's, has been around for over 55 years and as originally described did not use water pumps or artificial lighting and he documented coral growth in his tanks. Dr. Jauberts research into deep sand beds was done in the '80's and many of his systems did not use any external filtration, water pumps or protein skimming. Dr. Walter Adey's research on the Algal Turf System was started in 1974 did not include the use of protein skimmers. A quick perusal of a couple of old copy's of FAMA ('95 & '97) found an advertiser called Aquaricare pushing their system without skimming even going so far to say ". . . they also damage the system!" While not strictly "reef" Dr. Martin Moe was raising commercial quantities of clown fish using undergravel filters with airlifts in the 70's. The DAS (Dutch Aquarium Systems) did use a small protien skimmer but design of their system only allowed use of flourescent lights. Fossa and Nilsen in Vol 3 of "The Modern Coral Reef Aquarium", pg 408, detail a 100 reef gallon system established in '83 using 7 36W fluorescent bulbs.

I think the adaptability of corals is the main reason for success of the hobby. I can remember when I was keeping freshwater reading about the captive history of the freshwater angelfish Pterophyllium scalare and P. altum. When they were first imported it difficult to keep them alive and impossible to breed and raise them. Hobbyists kept at it and eventually some were successful. Then it was the Discus turn to be goal of breeders. Now there are many varieties of each available. When I started keeping saltwater Xenia was considered difficult to impossible to keep. In the nineties Acro's were the mark of achievement for a successfull reef. Now I'm flushing Xenia. There are species of acro that are still considered a challenge but many hobbyests are giving away acros.

Another interesting fact that argues for corals adapting to aquarium conditions is the problem the Stienhart Aquarium had with corals donated from hobbyests. When it stocked it's new aquarium a significant percentage of the corals were donated by hobbyests, some were collected by staff in the Phillipines and some were recieved from US Customs confiscations. Over 99% of the corals from hobbyests died while there was minimal dieoff of the wild collected corals from the Philipines and the US Custom confiscations. It's speculated aquarium grown hobbyests corals had problems adjusting to the varing light levels from the skylights over the aquarium.

[caferacermike]

Ah yes Tim but keep in mind as well that I have plenty of of old print how to set up and maintain a salt water aquarium books here at the house printed circa 1970-1985 that say the proper care and maintenance for corals is to have a "back up set" of corals soaking in a 10% bleach to water solution, so that when your display corals lose that bright white look and get covered in algae, you can then quickly swap them out for sparkling white ones.

It's just I feel, and have read, that when skimmers and MH lamps were incorporated to the hobby, that the hobby jumped leaps and bounds into the future. As you said there were some successes before that, but not many and not enough to call it a hobby. Most people were keeping fish in a tank full of dead bleached out coral skeletons. I agree that as corals adapted to the domesticated life that things also got easier, but it was the proper lighting that kept them alive in the first place. I also agree that for the most part all of my corals in the beginning were wild caught. So non of my successes were due to adapted corals.

[Juiceman]

I have an asm g2 on my 90g reef with lots of coral and fish. Pulls some NASTY stuff out. All that would still be in my tank if I didn't have one I think.

[dshel1217]

I have what may be a very dumb question but... I have a skimmer and it does pull out dark poop water but how do we know that is only pulling out bad stuff(ie waste, old food ect.) and not the good bacteria. If you compress a bunch of bad "good" bacteria together it would look dark brown too. Therefore, does a skimmer take both good and bad out of our tanks?

[subsea]

Yes, shimmers take out both good and bad. I have not used skimmers in more than ten years. I use charcoal as my only filtration. It also pulls out some good: iodine.

[caferacermike]

They pull out both "bad" and "good" but keep in mind that through proper animal husbandry everything will be kept in balance. For instance if you are worried about pulling out a little good with a skimmer then by all accounts you wouldn't want to do water changes then right?

[dshel1217]

They pull out both "bad" and "good" but keep in mind that through proper animal husbandry everything will be kept in balance. For instance if you are worried about pulling out a little good with a skimmer then by all accounts you wouldn't want to do water changes then right?

I'm not worried about pulling "good" out , I was just wondering if skimmers did.

[caferacermike]

Ok, and I answered it in a direct manner.

I then added that what is pulled out, will be put back in. You are not the only person that reads this forum and thus an open ended question such as yours could cause a noob to unnecessarily fear that skimmers will cause harm to their tank. By addressing this, hopefully it can put those that could become worried an answer that can put them at ease.

[dshel1217]

Ok, and I answered it in a direct manner.

I then added that what is pulled out, will be put back in. You are not the only person that reads this forum and thus an open ended question such as yours could cause a noob to unnecessarily fear that skimmers will cause harm to their tank. By addressing this, hopefully it can put those that could become worried an answer that can put them at ease.

But yes your right there not much you can do with taking some of the good stuff with it. But like you said finding a balance is what makes this hobby so interesting

[+Mel in Elgin]

Wow! Thanks everyone for your responses.

I think I am going to try my luck without a skimmer at first. I currently have a 29g biocube with a skimmer that I hardly ever run. As someone mentioned above...I can look at my corals and tell when something is not exactly right...hopefully I have the same luck with the 40. If not, I have several good references for skimmers

Thanks Again,

Melissa

[subsea]

This discussion is a good one. As with many things, the use of absolutes such as good and bad become issues of sematics. A little bit of icecream is good, a lot of icecream is bad. Same icecream. "A Question of Balance" is the real issue. Since we all know that we are addicks to this hobby, "Balance" is not our strong point.

[Timfish]

I have what may be a very dumb question but... I have a skimmer and it does pull out dark poop water but how do we know that is only pulling out bad stuff(ie waste, old food ect.) and not the good bacteria. If you compress a bunch of bad "good" bacteria together it would look dark brown too. Therefore, does a skimmer take both good and bad out of our tanks?

Here's a quote from the conclusion of research published in Advanced Aquarist:

"Aquaria subjected to active filtration via skimming present water column bacteria populations that are approximately 1/10 of those observed on natural reefs. The consequences of this disparity on the long-term health of the tank's livestock are not known. How do reef tank organisms adapt to such a bacteria-deficient environment? Is the whole food web in an aquarium perturbed, or are there compensatory mechanisms that maintain an appropriate energy transduction through all of the trophic levels? Is "old tank syndrome" related to possible nutritional deficiencies stemming from this bacteria "gap"? Alternatively, could "old tank syndrome" be symptomatic of a gradual decrease of bacterial diversity as a consequence of selective skimmer-based removal of only bubble-susceptible bacteria? At present, it is not possible to go beyond speculation on these points - further research is needed."

Here's the link if you want to read the whole article (it's pretty detailed but they included some pretty pictures )

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2011/3/aafeature

Ken Feldman et al has several other very interesting articles covering a variety of subjects on older volumes that are real interesting as well (as do some of the other authors).

[Timfish]

. . . Since we all know that we are addicks to this hobby, "Balance" is not our strong point.

Hey! I'm balanced!

[subsea]

I have what may be a very dumb question but... I have a skimmer and it does pull out dark poop water but how do we know that is only pulling out bad stuff(ie waste, old food ect.) and not the good bacteria. If you compress a bunch of bad "good" bacteria together it would look dark brown too. Therefore, does a skimmer take both good and bad out of our tanks?

Here's a quote from the conclusion of research published in Advanced Aquarist:

"Aquaria subjected to active filtration via skimming present water column bacteria populations that are approximately 1/10 of those observed on natural reefs. The consequences of this disparity on the long-term health of the tank's livestock are not known. How do reef tank organisms adapt to such a bacteria-deficient environment? Is the whole food web in an aquarium perturbed, or are there compensatory mechanisms that maintain an appropriate energy transduction through all of the trophic levels? Is "old tank syndrome" related to possible nutritional deficiencies stemming from this bacteria "gap"? Alternatively, could "old tank syndrome" be symptomatic of a gradual decrease of bacterial diversity as a consequence of selective skimmer-based removal of only bubble-susceptible bacteria? At present, it is not possible to go beyond speculation on these points - further research is needed."

Here's the link if you want to read the whole article (it's pretty detailed but they included some pretty pictures )

http://www.advanceda...011/3/aafeature

Ken Feldman et al has several other very interesting articles covering a variety of subjects on older volumes that are real interesting as well (as do some of the other authors).

Tim, the idea of bio-diversity has fueled many discussions on old tank sydrome. When DSB were first gaining in popularity a reef club meeting included a sand swap. Everyone that wanted to be involved, brought a bag of substrate and dumped in a common tank. All the substrate was stirred and everyone brought home "a pig in a poke". I thought it was all good fun. One time, I brought a bag of RIDX and autioned it as anorobic bacteria spores.