[Mr. Scratch]

From personal experience, and a little reading between the lines, and seeing the myriad of people who have beautiful tanks with little to no technology, i would surmise that the majority of the technology we use in our tanks, while no doubt helps, is not required. Simple maintenace and I hate to say it some luck i think goes a long way to the quality of our tanks. I know i guy who has an incredible tank, over populated with fish, sps, clams etc, softies, etc.. no skimmer, no dosing other than a alk/calc combo (kent i believe) no sump, no sulphur denitrator, no ozone, 4 powerheads, 2 xp4's (now, they were eheims i believe) he has expensive lighting etc, and does water changes every 2 months...proof you don't need a room full of equipment. I think technology is more for convienence then anything. that being said i do have a skimmer on mine 2 in fact, they were bought for me and I believe should i desire for whatever reason to do less .frequent water changes they would enable me to do so without as much concern. I to though enjoy gadgets and like most other feel "I" "NEED" to be doing something in order for the tank to be healthy, rather than let it do its thing (to some degree at least, this is changing the more i learn, water changes are the one thing that will never change, wether they are biweekly, monthly etc... I think they do help for sure)