Reef Aquarium Fact #316 A Protein Skimmer is not a necessary piece of equipment....

[revhtree]

We are going to continue discussing the reef aquarium facts submitted by our members. Do you agree or disagree? What are your thoughts?

Fact #316

A Protein Skimmer is not a necessary piece of equipment. That being said a light to heavy stocked reef tank will benefit greatly from one and will also keep at bay many issues and create less work for you!

Truth or False? What else might we need to learn on this subject? Please also share any pictures that may pertain to the subject.

image via Marine Depot What is a Protein Skimmer

 

[beaslbob]

True

A skimmer is not a necessary piece of equipment.

regardless of the bioload the skimmer will actually create more work for you.

I just use a refugium with macro algaes and do no water changes. So my tanks were pretty much low maintenance anyway. So much so that I could leave for up to a week and do nothing special while away. By turning off the sump I would leave for 2-3 weeks.


my .02

 

[GnarleyMarley]

I agree to a degree, Of course u can maintain a saltwater aquarium without a skimmer but depending on what kind of corals and fishload u plan on having it could become a option to run one rather than rely simply on WC and a fuge. In an sps dedicated tank where water quality and stability are imperative to a thriving tank a skimmer is an invaluable piece of equipment. I know that there are people out there who will disagree with me but in order to achieve the extravagant colors and groewth that so many of us see here on any given sps thread u need a skimmer. Of course u dont "have" to have one but it makes it next to impossible to achieve the best coloration out of most any sps if u are simply relying on regular routine water changes, because as staited above the key to maintaining a THRIVING sps tank is stability and if u are not running a skimmer to effectivley remove organic waste your water quality becomes more of a rollercoaster where it is extremely clean for a few days then gets dirtier and dirtier until the next w/c.

Now in LPS and softie tanks u can actually achieve better growth, and a happier tank (in some cases) without running a skimmer. My 30 gal lps tank relied on a large fuge and regular water changes and everything flourished in that tank, however almost any acro i put in there browned out in a matter of weeks.

So can it be done yes, but it is really dependant on what kinds of animals u plan on keeping and what it is that u are trying to achieve with your aquarium

 

[Liquid360]

I can go a week without eating.... but why would I want to?

 

[Daniel@R2R]

I agree with the way Rev has this worded. I'd say this is a fact.

 

[uall8up]

True....but my tank looks a ton better since adding one!!! I will always have a skimmer for my tanks.

 

[shawy2510]

I had a skimmer on my tank mainly zoas but also sps & lps & toom the skimmer off & now do 20% water changes a week & have had a vast improvement on colour & growth. It has been off for over 2 months now.

 

[AZDesertRat]

It may not be entirely necessary but it is one of those pieces of equipment that will make your life much easier and your reef look much healthier. I have had and still have tanks with and without and the tanks with skimmers are more successful than those without, even with well stocked refugiums and light bio loads.

 

[Wildexpressions]

I am long winded by nature but there is no way to give a fair and honest response to this topic with out explaining your view point fully. It is one of the reasons that although I find this to be an interesting topic I rarely engage in conversations about it online.

I operate numerous personal systems but only one is considered my personal aquarium. The others are business systems. The business systems run aggressive skimmers, sulfur denitrification reactors, carbon reactors, ROWAphos, DSB, large amounts of live rock, UV lights and well the list goes on. In those systems my goal is to grow or color up a wide variety of coral species as fast and/or as strongly as possible. They work and they work well but they are always being micro managed, modified and tweaked

MY personal system is a modest 65 gallon. It was designed to look great and be both as inexpensive and as low in maintenance as I could accomplish. If not for the lights the entire setup would have cost less than $300 taxes in and it only cost that much because I bought a new aquarium and a beautiful oak stand used off kijiji. I kept cost down by making my own rock.

For its first year it ran a 20 gallon sump with 12 lbs of live rock and used a 20+ year old freshwater monster sized aquaclear power head as a return pump. No reactors, no skimmer, no refugium.

The sump had a flow though rate of perhaps 30 gph because powerheads were never intended to pump up 4ft of head. At the end of the first year, over a period of 2 months, I slowly removed the live rock from the sump and then eventually removed the sump altogether and it ran nothing for over a year. Absolutely no mechanical filtration of any sort although it did run a DIY gravity fed ATO.

It depended on a well established and well crafted deep sand bed. It only saw, on average, 4 x 20% water changes a year. Nitrates were consistently under 10 ppm and usually were undetectable. Near the end of the 2nd year I installed an Aquaclear 500 HOB filled with filter floss as means of reducing suspended particulate matter. That was how it ran from then on. I very lightly fed the aquarium gut loaded mysis once every two days and a little seaweed once a week or so. Rather then a feeding schedule I simply observed the fishes conditioning.

That system required less than one hour of work a month to maintain for the several years it operated and cost wise it very literally ran on less than pocket change.
It was a mixed reef system and it was build using mostly $10 to $30 frags pulled out of our retail sales tanks. It was also where we put dying or damaged corals that were brought in by clients and donated to us and there were a few items we traded for. I speak in the past tense because we are renovating and last month it was torn down and now it sits in my new office filled with water and waiting for me to get to it. Here are some pictures taken a few months back. If you look carefully you will see there are a very wide variety of corals from numerous SPS to a number of LPS, huge Paly colonies and quite a few leathers. Do any of them look unhealthy to you?

So IMO do you need a protein skimmer? Well of course not. Is a system going to be more successful with a protein skimmer? Technically no, but in reality it really depends on the goals of the system in question. Will it reduce your work load to have a protein skimmer? That really depends of the design of the system. A better question is can it reduce your workload running with out a protein skimmer? Absolutely, assuming the system was build and is operated with that strategy in mind. Do I recommend to clients that they operate their systems with out a protein skimmer? Absolutely not. If they had the skills and technical abilities to do so they wouldn't need to ask me for advice on whether to do so. They would instead discuss the various manners in which they might approach it. When it is set back up will it be running a protein skimmer? Absolutely not. Will any of my commercial systems ever run with out a protein skimmer? Not very likely but perhaps one day. Time, experience and design goals will decide.

I apologize for the bandwidth eating long winded response but I felt my comments would have little meaning with out pictures and explanations.

 

[skinz78]

It depends on the tank, inhabitants, and the caregiver.

This is my Bio Cube which is skimmerless.

 

[revhtree]

Any more thoughts on this?

 

[SloppyJ]

Is it absolutely needed? No. But would I run a tank without one? No.

 

[Liquid360]

When doing state reef inspections I generally subtract 5 points which isn't the difference between getting your permit renewed or not but 5 points is 5 points.

 

[Chris Villalobos]

So everyone is running protein skimmers and then adding "amino acids" and other coral foods that the protein skimmer just skimmed away. With efficient algae sumps I think skimmers will be a thing of the past in a few years. But I bet the skimmer manufacturers will try to lobby to keep up product demand. I ditched my skimmer and filter socks and have been a happier man since!

 

[Gnomy]

So everyone is running protein skimmers and then adding "amino acids" and other coral foods that the protein skimmer just skimmed away. With efficient algae sumps I think skimmers will be a thing of the past in a few years. But I bet the skimmer manufacturers will try to lobby to keep up product demand. I ditched my skimmer and filter socks and have been a happier man since!

The 60g cube I'm setting up will not have a skimmer. Mostly because it's not in my budget immediately, I will add one down the line if I feel it is necessary.

 

[ca1ore]

It's phrased in a rather 'squidgy' way ..... so of course it's true. Same logic would apply to most equipment

 

[hart24601]

I think we have gotten to the point where almost nothing is really "needed" in the hobby. Sure different approaches have pros/cons, but I bet you can find an great looking tanks with a variety of livestock using and not using just about every combination of equipment possible.

Just for lighting, you want to use sunlight? Sure can! (of course being mindful a potential issues with each type)
LED? Sure!
MH? Sure!
Power Compacts? Sure if you really wanted!

For tanks, you want a standard glass tank? Easy! 20,000g? Sure! How about SPS pico tank? Yep. Rubbermaid stock tank or plastic raceway? No problem. Jars, and other creative containers? Yep been done.

No waterchanges? Yep it's possible. 100% waterchanges? Yep, some do it.

Powerheads, closed loop, return only, HOB... all have examples out there of nice reefs. Skimmers, refugiums, reactors, scrubbers - any and all combos are out there as well.

Really if you want to do a particular combination, you probably can. Just have to be aware of challenges and stock accordingly.

 

[tidefanjam]

Old thread, but interesting. I run a 65 also with a 20g sump/ refugium, 1 clown, striped blenny,starry blenny, and a cardinal. Mostly lps with a couple of acro I added about a month ago. Tanks been up 20 months and I took my skimmer off 3 months ago because I couldn’t keep any nitrates or phosphate in it, always zeros. Even now I can’t keep Phosphates off zero. I will say the tanks been cleaner since I took it off. I do have a 8x8x4 block of marinepure in my sump.

 

[scriptmonkey]

No skimmer for 2 years and all my stuff seems happy. PO4 at .03ppm and NO3 at 4ppm ish

 

[jda]

People just tend to think about the organics, but a skimmer also does more for gas exchange than anything else. Also, it will export heavy metals that get bound up into those organics - who else accounts for this in other places? The metals come in on food, salt mix and can unbind from rock and sand.

I would never run a tank without one, but I also do not fear low building block levels like some do.