Do you really need a skimmer?
- Thread starter e323
- Start date
I agree i ran my system for six months without a skimmer and not a water change in 12months with no ill effect. BUT i knew my system and it was under controlled observasion. If you gonna stock heavily and or overfeed you bound to get shit. I could see on mine when over feeding phyto and zoo plankton it made a huge differnce in water quality and i could smell the water and i had small out breaks of red slime algae and diatom blooms and as soon as i slowed down on the excess feeding they would ween and dissapeear. Although i also found without good water circulation i also got diatom blooms so who knows.
So yes in short you do need a skimmer for a healthy system in the long run if you gonna stock and over feed, and we all do.
Why is that?
For corals that like "dirtier" water a skimmer can strip the water bare, but one still needs one, even if it runs less than 24/7
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No corals like "dirty" water.
NIMFT! My nitrate is aways 0 & my LPS are thriving. Nothing responds well to undissolved metabolites.
Doesn't that mean nitrate? I believe this to be an old wives tale.
what are you testing your nitrates with test kit?what brand etc?
what i dont understand is why one would want to go without a skimmer, especially in a FO system. the cost of a skimmer isnt high in relation to many other things in this hobby especially in rewlation to the length of time one has a skimmer. such a simple piece of equipment with so many advantages i just dont see the vallue in skimming them out.
I don't have a skimmer on my little nano.
Crispin - a large part of the reason for me is cost, but the bigger reason is actually sound. My tanks in my room - on my work desk.
Another reason is that I am rather enamoured with the idea of biological filtration. I just like the idea of growing refugiums and little turf scrubbers etc.
Crispin - a large part of the reason for me is cost, but the bigger reason is actually sound. My tanks in my room - on my work desk.
Another reason is that I am rather enamoured with the idea of biological filtration. I just like the idea of growing refugiums and little turf scrubbers etc.
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Salifert.
Manic
Retired Moderator
No corals will survive with nitrates of 0. Sorry but it is impossible. Something in your tank is masking the nitrates (Algae or something).
True manic I agree with you,Pufferpunk your test kit can only measure as low as 0,2 and to explain what manic is saying is that the other stuff like corals and algae use up the nitrates before they can be free floating in the water....leading you to believe that you have zero nitrates but infact you have much more produced.Just means your system is balanced to keep the nitrates at close to zero.
Its just being used up faster than your test kit can pick up.
Think of this hypothetical scenario...your corals etc use up say 10parts of nitrate per day but they can only easily absorb it when the concentrations are above a certain level.Now your system is usually below that level as it only produces 5parts per day,so that means they will still get the nitrates they need but not as easily as in a tank thats BALANCED at say a bit more than zero and producing 10 parts per day which is their optimal intake level hence some people keep it abit higher so that there is always available nitrates for them.
The thing to remember here is that you need to keep it balanced...too many fluctuations or high nitrate levels will be detrimental to the health of softies even.
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I have been dosing my tank with vitamin C for over 3 years. Believe me, the nitrate remains 0, my corals grow huge, more colorful & very healthy. So are my fish.
Yep & the VC boosts the nitrate-eating bacteria. It's called: carbon dosing.
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