Skimmer Necessary?

would not do with out skimmer and sump can be built cheep. built this one for around 80 bucks Or you could do the rubbermaid thing also.

 

Having a tank without a protein skimmer is like having a car without power steering. You can still run the tank, and it works just fine and does what you want it to, but it makes life so much easier when you have a skimmer.

And, skimmers do not take out salt. They take out dissolved organic waste such as food and poop, and in some cases the remains of dead algae and what not. The smell and site of what's in a skimmer's collection cup is a testament to how important they can be. I used to empty my cup every day, and imagining all of that in my water is just plain nasty.

I highly highly highly recommend a skimmer. I wouldn't run a tank without one. In my mind, a skimmer is just as important or more important than live rock or sand when concerned with filtration. A buddy of mine had algae and nitrate struggles for about a year until he finally dropped the $$$ and bought a skimmer. All problems went away in less than a week and have yet to return.

 

thanks for all the opinions guys. One more question.. what about a Fluval Canister? would that provide me with the same as a protein skimmer?

 

90 Gallon...18 Months, No Skimmer. Just a well stocked refugium. You can see the tank here:

http://www.3reef.com/forums/532035-post1.html

The key, as stated, is whether you want to keep fish and how many. What has worked for me is keeping the "inches of fish" within recommendation. So a 35 G aquarium will allow you roughly 7 inches of fish. (About 2 small fish, like clowns or damsels) If you want to keep more fish than this, or fish that require very high water quality, you will need a skimmer. Water parameter changes due to overfeeding, death, etc are exaggerated in a 35 G aquarium so it will be harder to keep a 35G aquarium without a skimmer vs. a 100 Gallon without a skimmer.

my 2 Cents

 

There is an important difference between mechanical filtration such as a Fluval cannister and a protein skimmer. A mechanical filter traps food, deitrius, etc.. but does not remove it from the water. Water keeps flowing though the filter pad and as the food breaks down your nitrate levels will go up.

With a protein skimmer the material you want to remove from the water is trapped by the bubbles and moved into the collection cup. The waste in the cup is isolated from your tank so it can no longer pollute it. So basically the material is removed from the tank before it can break down so it makes it easier to keep your nitrates low.

I highly recommend the AquaC Remora Pro. I run my tank with no mechanical filtration at all and my water stays extremely clear.

 

Thanks for all your input guys. I just bought a Coralife 125 from a guy of ebay for 75$... i hope i got a good deal. Another question though... do you guys run your skimmer constantly or just periodicaly?... And i believe my tank is cycling right now so i should hold off on hooking it up correct?

 

Yes and yes. I run my skimmer 24/7, and empty it around every to every other day. The smell alone coming from the collection cup when you empty it is enough to justify the skimmer, because you realize you pulled all of that out from your water. And yes, hold off on the skimmer until the cycle is complete and you have fish to make waste and such. The skimmer takes all of that crap out of the water, but you need it for your cycle. No waste, no cycle.

And ebay is iffy. I haven't heard much about the Coralife skimmer, but we bought our Berlin X2 for $75 from our LFS's employee. It is considered overkill on maybe a 55 or 75, he had it on his 120, and we have it on our 46. muahahahahahaha.

 

my apologies, lol I don't know why I wrote ebay... I bought it from craigslist and just picked it up. I wanna test it but as you said im not supposed to yet.

Posted via Mobile Device:
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 7.11) Sprint:MotoQ9c

 

what do you think of having a skimmer on a nano 10 gal? no need yea?