Water Purification

[danny zubot]

Bob, if you've never had one then how can you possibly decide if they are "grossly overated" Have you seen skimmate?

[Bob I]

It would of course be an exercise in futility to engage in an argument. I have stated an opinion, and that is as far as I will go. I have run a very successful reef tank for the last five years without resorting to a skimmer except a brief unsatisfying experience with one, and my decision is to leave the gadget to those who believe there is need for one.

[TheReefGeek]

Yes, it is possible to run a successfull reef without a skimmer, nobody will argue that.

But could that same reef be run easier, and possibly even healthier, with a skimmer?

Bob, what skimmer did you try, on what size tank? What made the experience unsatisfying?

[Beverly]

I'm with boB on this one.

A few years ago, we ran a Precision Marine HOT skimmer on our first two reefs for about 2-3 years. Produced great skimmate! But fiddling with it to remove micro bubbles, fiddling to get the skimmate not too wet or too dry, and coming home to at least two floods was just too much freaking work! Now that we live in a second storey condo, floods are a major no-no

I know we do exta work to compensate for the lack of skimmers on our three reefs, but we don't have any more floods and don't have to fiddle with extra machinery. IMO, our reefs look great.

Rory and countless others have seen our skimmerless reefs. Anyone care to comment on how our reefs are doing without skimmers?

[Psyire]

I think you can run a tank just fine without a skimmer. However once you get into the bigger tanks a skimmer is almost a necessity, due to the amount of time and money required to due major upkeep all the time. My total system volume nears 250 gallons and I would not like changing 10-20% of this every week. If I was retired and didn't have much on the go, well I could manage that, but I'm not. I perfer doing less waterchanges and pulling oodles of junk out with my skimmer. I also think that the balance in my tank is better due to the fact that I'm always pulling out waste that is theoretically introduced as food everyday. It dosen't accumulate until my next water change.

Bev gets away with not skimming, but she's also on a very strict maintenance schedule that some people would have a hard time adhereing to.

[Funky_Fish14]

Originally Posted by Beverly

Anyone care to comment on how our reefs are doing without skimmers?

I'll jump.

Beverly's reefs are probably three of the best looking reefs I've seen. Zero clutter in the tanks, they are VERY clean, all the corals are very healthy, and the fish didnt looked stressed at all. Also, I remember the tanks, and water looking VERY clear, which, not to say its a bad thing, but doesnt seem to be the case in every tank.

Chris

[fortheloveofcrabs]

I will second that, Bev's reefs are fantastic! Mind you Harvy's 33 gal cube (now no longer, sob sob sob) was the #1 reef I've seen and I believe he is a gadget geek. That said what really makes a good looking reef, is the the aquascaping. You can have a tank full of mushrooms, xenia, polyps, some shrimp and few damsels or clowns - if properly aquascaped it will look like a million bucks (whatever that means). Having said all this, I think a skimmer can be good and can be bad. I have an alveopora, it was not doing well until I removed my skimmer. That said, when I first started the tank, I had an algae growth in the water column problem (like not see you hand in the tank unless it was touching the glass 'algae growth in the water column problem') and I could not, for the life of me, change enough water to get it out. My trusty skimmer and 9 hours, BAM! Clean as a whistle!

So, everything in moderation...

-Pauli

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Beverly

I'm with boB on this one.

A few years ago, we ran a Precision Marine HOT skimmer on our first two reefs for about 2-3 years. Produced great skimmate! But fiddling with it to remove micro bubbles, fiddling to get the skimmate not too wet or too dry, and coming home to at least two floods was just too much freaking work! Now that we live in a second storey condo, floods are a major no-no

I know we do exta work to compensate for the lack of skimmers on our three reefs, but we don't have any more floods and don't have to fiddle with extra machinery. IMO, our reefs look great.

Rory and countless others have seen our skimmerless reefs. Anyone care to comment on how our reefs are doing without skimmers?

Yes Bev, but how much extra work has not having a skimmer cost you? mind you I think you have a little bit of Obsessive/compulsive going on anyways with your water changes and tank maintenance so it probably works for you, but for normal people who don't want there tanks to consume there whole life.....

Sorry Bob, I can't back you on this one.. I tried your "skimmer-less" ideal for the last 6 months as I figured what the heck I am building a new one anyways.. anyhow.. algae ran out of control, water changes went from 10% a month to about 50% a week personal maintenance went to a daily thing instead of every month.. sorry I don't have the time to not run a skimmer.

to replace a skimmer you need more than just 1 thing up there for example a Skimmer will:

remove dissolved organics = Carbon
remove undissolved stuff = mechanical filter
remove nitrates by removing the stuff that causes them in the first place = mechanical filter + live rock/sand bed/fluidized filter

OK now you still have other benefits that you will be missing.. a all in one solution, aeration of the water with out air stones or excessive surface movement which leads to salt creep, extra water flow.. ect..

for what it is worth there are ways to stop a skimmer from putting bubbles into a tank so that should never be an issue. and sense a skimmer is basically a closed loop there is no reasons for floods if you use some common sense and chose your skimmer and set up with what you want to achieve in mind.

Steve

[Beverly]

Steve,

FWIW, quoted from http://www.nimh.nih.gov/HealthInformation/ocdmenu.cfm ....

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, OCD, is an anxiety disorder and is characterized by recurrent, unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and/or repetitive behaviors (compulsions). Repetitive behaviors such as handwashing, counting, checking, or cleaning are often performed with the hope of preventing obsessive thoughts or making them go away. Performing these so-called "rituals," however, provides only temporary relief, and not performing them markedly increases anxiety.

Yes, it may be funny to some people to obliquely infer that someone who has different reefkeeping methods from one's own as mentally ill. I can assure you, however, that among my human frailties and health issues, OCD is not among them. I would be insulted for myself and for others who do weekly tank maintenance if I didn't think your comments come from either ignorance of the serious nature of OCD and other mental illnesses, or if you just wanted to yank my chain, or both.


Anyway, on to other matters.....

What good does a monthly 10% water change do for your tank? Why even bother with water changes at all when they are so infrequent and small? I know a guy at the lfs who boasts he hasn't done a water change in three years and has shown me pics on the web to prove his corals' health. You've got all the gadgets and know how to pull off something like this. Why not do what he does?

For that matter, what good does a measly weekly 15% water change do for my tanks? It certainly does not raise my alk, Ca or Mg, and if I had nitrate/phosphate issues, 15% a week wouldn't even begin to address them. I've read that doing frequent water changes replenishes trace elements, but I have no way of testing to know if that's true. I've also read that doing frequent water changes adds heavy metals from the salt mix into the tank, which, over time, can be unhealthy for a tank's inhabitants. Again, I have no real way to test this either.

I think the real issue at hand is that comparing my tank and my maintenance regime to your tank and your maintenance regime is comparing apples to oranges. You have chosen one way to keep a reef and I have chosen another. IMO, what works for each of us, if indeed our maintenance regimes are doing what we claim they do, should be good enough.

Cheers to all reefers!

[TheReefGeek]

Just wanted to comment on finicky skimmers, micro bubbles and floods.

1. For hang-on skimmers, you unfortunately have a small risk here, but mitigate it by using high quality designs like Remoras and this should not be a problem. For in-sump skimmers, proper sump design will eliminate micro bubbles. You need to allow enough space for the bubbles to rise and pop, baffles help as well.

2. For floods because of a skimmer overflowing, just drill the collection cup high up and emptly it into a 5g bucket for it to overflow into.

3. Some skimmers do require lots of tuning for initial setup. But I think this setup time is less than the time required to maintain a non-skimmer setup. If you have to keep tuning your skimmer, then something keeps changing in your reef, likely inconsistant water level, and dosing your tank with different products.

Bev's skimmerless tanks work for her and that is great. She does have very nice tanks, they are beautiful and really quiet which is nice.

But she has trade-offs too. She keeps her bioload really low, does tons of tank maintenance and runs bare bottom.

So a reefer has to figure out if they are willing to make this trade-off or not. I know I am not, I like high bioloads and the look of a sand bottom and try to keep maintenance to a minimum. For the bulk of reefers, and especially those just getting into the hobby I think a skimmer is essential.