Sounds crazy to me!

[Eazy222]

Maybe some one can shed some light on this. I was told this weekend by a LFS that a skimmer was not needed in a reef tank. They explained that as long as you use carbon in your filter it would do fine.

They also said that there was no need for a watts to gallon ratio when lighting a tank. They have been around for some time, and do pretty well for a small LFS...

Just not sure about the info they are telling me.

[fox2589]

you can get away without skimmers if you do plenty of water changes and feed lightly..but i wouldn't recommend it..Carbon may help but in no way to i see it taking the place of a good skimmer..JMO..i think there right about the watts per gallon rule,it isn't realistic,the thing to judge is how much par your corals are getting at a given point..watts per gallon really is irrelevant if ya ask me..-drew

[Reeftanker3295]

I would say that in a nano tank (10 gallons) you can get away with a HOB filter or something but i deffinetely wouldnt reccomend it for any larger reef tanks, you will run into problems down the road.

[schmnr]

I wouldnt try it!

[three90s&125sump]

You can get away with out a skimmer on a system but why would you want to? You'll have increased DOCs, NO3, PO4, yellow water, lots of particulates, you'll have to change a lot more water a lot more often, the list prolly continues.

Its kinda like not having insurance on your car. You can get away with it but is it worth it?

[Eazy222]

Make sense to me, I really didn't want to see what would happen if I didn't. I've had a couple of fresh water tanks crash over the years, don't need that in my 180 as expensive as it's already got, and more money dumped in every week.

[Reeftanker3295]

Yea make sure to get the best equipment because if something doesnt work well or fails you could lose your corals or grow all sorts of algae and mess up your tank that youve spent all that money on.