My way of reef keeping is the best! What??

everybody to there own opinion, a larger shimmer removes organics at a faster rate which is benifical to the health of the tank in the long run

 

i think i know what thread your talking about, and have to say at times people take people as being arrogant. the written word is so much different than if you heard it coming from someones mouth. i know i often get mistaken. putting things in writing is not my strong point. so with that said i feel its just someone stating their thoughts and there is nothing wrong with that. what they are doing clearly works for them. as the pictures showed.
every tank is different. there are sooooo many things that come into play, its what makes the hobby so interesting. I'm always looking for ways to tweak the tank and make it run more efficient , and love reading people thoughts when its so detailed as the thread i think your speaking of.
i have to give the guy a thumbs up for a great tank and the guts to speak his thoughts.
anyone who just takes one perspective is asking for trouble, and should know to go at this hobby with an open mind and a lot of reading. so i don't think that thread will be misconstrued . i for one enjoyed it.

 

I think that powerman brings a valid point, he does know a lot about skimmers. Ultimately overskimming and removing organics quicker are different thing IMO. You could have a small skimmer that was very efficient or a larger one with a less eficient pump. Ultimately they will demove the same amount of organics, one just faster.

 

hi pink you just said pretty much the same think i tried to covey, i said i wanted to say great tank and the method was great but, there's so many wonderful ways to create a reeftank and nothing should be off the table creativity is on the move, aquaculture is getting better and coral are becoming available to the hobby, i just hope that i have helped the hobby and i don't want to say in anyway that your not doing it right because your doing it different, unless you ask for some help having a problem

 

hi panfish i have no doubt powerman knows his stuff, my point was there are different reasons for different people and no two may be the same, i have a more powerful and efficient skimmer then i need for the size of my tank to remove the organics as fast as possible, were talking one step above what would work for my tank and i don't think it was a waste of money for me. in my mind bigger is better for this case.

 

And you would be correct with that statement.. yet you can't link that to a tank being "better". And to what degree is it beneficial... 5%... 90%??? Say you have a rated skimmer.... it removes 100% in 100% of the time... double sized skimmer removes 100% of organics in 50% of the time... but 100% of the organics are still removed... so how can we quantify how much "better" that is for a tank???

The thing is that going bigger than 2x starts to make performance suffer... so instead of having a 4x skimmer remove 100% of the organics in 25% of the time... it could actually be it removes 75% of the organics in 50% of the time. So while we can strap a big honkin skimmer to a small tank and say... "Well my tank is great so it must be the big honkin skimmer... well we can't say that... and not only that, there is plenty of evidence that states big honkin skimmers performs worse on small tanks.

On this part I'm sorry if I'm splitting hairs... I only wanted to address it because it illustrates your rant perfectly.. people are rigid in their opinions when they can't actually quantify what those opinions are based on. To make matters worse, perhaps we could agree that something is "better"... but if it turns out it is only 5% better... well then who cares... probably just as easy to make that up somewhere else.

 

I, too, know the thread you're talking about, and quite frankly, I have to agree... the OP was not just stating what worked best for him, but was actually debunking conventional, tried-and-true methods with no scientific data to back up his claims. From looking at all the different tanks on this site and all the diverse methods in which they are being kept, all I can say is, "there are many roads that lead to Rome".

 

powerman i'm not trying to step on your post, i'm just trying to say nothing is set in stone in this hobby, everybody has there reasons for doing what they do. confidents means alot in anything, if a man feels confident on what he's doing and it's working for him, i'm not gonna knock it for him. if he feels he needs a bigger more efficient skimmer, i'm not gonna tell him he don't because, he's pround of his achievement or he has another reason other than mine. and lets say your right about 5% i believe it would be higher than that but, 5% better 365 days per year may be benifical to a coral

 

Sure... no problem skinning a cat a different way, but confidence based on false information and false assumptions is not something I see value in. YMMV

 

I am new to this site, but not new to reefkeeping. I have absolutely no idea what thread you are talking about, but I have read this entire thread. Here's my .02.

I have had many, many tanks in the past, and I am an ex fish store owner. I've set up tanks with oversized skimmers, regular skimmers, plenty of live rock, almost no live rock, refugiums only, algae scrubbers only, algae scrubbers and skimmers only... I've used almost every combination of equipment possible in this hobby. I can officially say that... it depends on the tank. Some setups require more filtration then others. Some tanks are overfed (like in restaurants with customers) so that they can have something to watch and need a crap load of more filtration then a regular home reef. I have my own personal methods for dealing with nitrate and phosphate issues and calcium and alkalinity issues. I enjoy this hobby because it is so diverse... there is no one single solution to the problem, and no one single cure for anything. If there was, I would be so bored with the hobby by now. lol!

Even though I have done many different types of setups, and heard about many and seen about many types of setups, I still have come to realize that it's ultimately up to the aquarist to decide what works best for his tank, and to take everyone's opinions with a grain of salt.