Do I really need a skimmer

[hooked]

Hello everyone,

The question is do I really need a skimmer? What I am getting at is that I have a remora skimmer with a maxi jet 1200. I clean the neck and cup out about every 4 days. I usually only get some dark brown looking water and only about 1/4 inch every 4 days. Is this thing working right? It has no adjustments other then raising or lowering the cup. I do water changes every 2 weeks at 15 gallons. This is on my 90g.

[Doug1]

It sounds like its trying to work. Whats your tanks bioload like? If its fairly low you just might not have a lot to skim

[Shack]

To put it simply
Yes

[R1Bill]

Hooked,

That is a subject debated often. Many adamently say that you do not need one. However, it does make your life easier. Even if it doesn't skim, the added aeration really helps to stabilize you pH, O2 level and reduce stress on your creatures. If you don't skim enough you still need to remove the nutrients and the only way to do this is either not feed or massive water changes. Else you end lots of algea, cyano, and other mess. When I was running a small skimmer on my 180, you could really see the water quality going downhill after about 4 weeks. As soon as I would do a 40 gallon water change all the corals would look better. With my huge new skimmer I am not seeing quite the same deterioation of water quality. Without knowing your tankload, I do think that your skimmer isn't working properly unless you don't feed. My skimmer pulls out a steady stream of very dry nasty foam and about 4 cups of liquid/week. My old skimmer (if I cleaned it every day) put out this amount of wet foam and about a gallon not so dirty liquid/week. If I didn't clean it after 3 days it acts like you describe yours. The new skimmer (homemade beckett head) doesn't seem to be sensitive to cleaning for proper function.

Good Luck!

Bill

btw, I would not ever have a tank without a skimmer unless I pumped in fresh ocean water continously.

[hooked]

Hey Doug,

I have the following in my tank

flame hawk ( med )
clown ( small )
yellow tang ( med )
pajama cardinals 3 ( small )
goby unkown ( med )
pygmi angel ( med )
pencil urchin ( med )
red star fish
I think I have something else just have a brain freeze.

I feed everyday of the week, I only put enough in that they can eat. I never have food make it less then 1/2 way down before they get it, my wife is always saying I am starving them. I feed blood worms and spiralena flakes ( spelling ?? ). My tank has been running for 6 months and I would think my skimmer should pull more out then that.

I figure when all the fish get large that the tank will be full then.

[David Grigor]

I ran my 190g tank skimmerless for almost a year. I had a 36X20 area of the sump for a refugium and caleurpa export. It seemed to work pretty well until some red fuzz algae took over the refugium and basically choked it out.

With the calerpa gone and couldn't get going again after trying to seed several times, tank quality was going down hill and nuisance algae popping up everywhere.

My point: I am not against skimmerless but IMO, best to have adequate size skimmer available and ready to go. First signs of problems you have something to fall back on.

In my case I didn't have a decent skimmer and paid the price. I didn't loose any livestock from the deal but took close to another year to undo all the algae problems it created.

Needless to say I am now a believer in skimmers and won't be caught with my pants down again......

[R1Bill]

Hooked,

With that amount of feeding and your bioload, IMHO you should be getting WAAAYYYY more gunk out of your skimmer. What if you tanke it completely apart and give a really good cleaning. With my old skimmer I had to do that monthly.



Bill

[Spanky]

I feed everyday of the week, I only put enough in that they can eat. I never have food make it less then 1/2 way down before they get it, my wife is always saying I am starving them.

Something to think about. You're feeding high phosphates and fish aren't good at processing it. Most of it passes right through them.

[Jimbo]

My skimmer does not remove much from my 40g anymore. Only thing I can attribute to it is the tank is processing the organics through a diverse ecosystem. If I don't run it for a couple of days them turn it on it will foam for about 12 hours and then slow down to a trickle. Refugium is probally a saviour here. I also like the airation of it and when I get my calcium reactor setup will use the skimmer as a co2 blowoff for the drip.

The skimmer is probally not needed, but it is a good safety net.

I feed 2-3 times a weak. Blender mush, Dt's, Nori, selcon.

Selcon kripples the skimmer for about 12 hours, being so greasy.

I am getting more gunk lately because of my black cucumber stirring up the cr*p in the sand bed.

[hooked]

I talked to AquaC today. They think since I do water changes every other week and vac the substrate that it could be cutting down on my skimmer performance.