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

[ScottR]

Judging from the gunk that I pull out off my skimmer and the smell of it, I’d say I’m happy it got caught in the skimmer and not left up to the rest of the tank to break it down. However, I turn it off when I travel and it stays off for days and I can’t say my tank looks any different. And parameters stay unchanged. So if needed, I think it’s more by choice.

 

[MissyTwitch]

Is a skimmer necessary, not really. A good refugium or Algae scrubber will do a better job without running the risk of stripping potassium and/other chemistries. That being said, it will decrease amount of times you change your sock filters. It will slow down the amount of detritus building up in your tank. If you have a fish heavy tank it will help increase your dissolved oxygen levels to maintain more fish/live stock. I ran a zeovit system without a skimmer for a 1-2 years and it was probably the most stable system I have ran. However, adding a protein skimmer makes the water look clearer and will increase your par from the manual removal of insoluble/soluble organics [ a big deal for SPS owners looking for higher par levels lower in the tank]. It makes tank prettier :0). As far as the work, we drilled a whole in the bottom of the cup and have the line go to a waste bucket. We clean the cup once a month. Pic below is set up for adding a new 600g system I have protein skimmer/ refugium-Algae scrubber hybrid.

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