I went skimmerless

MRIGUY · 02-24-2001, 06:59 PM

I decided to try going skimmerless for a while and see what happens. I noticed several tings
1. my gorgonians opened up like never before
2. my shrooms seem much happier
3. there was a surge in the ammount of "bugs" on my glass( amphipods, baby snails etc )
4. the cyano reared it's ugly head.
I tried vaccumming out the cyano daily and replacing with aged mix and I cut the feeding by 50%. ****. Oh. well. Three out of four isn't all that bad.

mini mee · 02-24-2001, 07:16 PM

Hi John
I was wondering though, I run my skimmer 24/7 I have often wonderd if maybe the 24/7 was not the greatest idea b/c of the skimmer exporting my trace elements judging from you're results maybe I could cut it back a little and see what happens.
Have you since gone back to using you're skimmer even off and on?

Thanks
mini

MRIGUY · 02-24-2001, 07:28 PM

Mini,

I ran the skimmer 24/7 for five days to essentially pull out any accumulant. I have now started running the skimmer at night. I just open the air intake before bed and close it before work. It is easy because I used to do the same thing with my mini reef in my office. I used a skilter and the thing was so $%&!@# noisy that I could only run it when I was out.

mini mee · 02-24-2001, 07:48 PM

John
I think I'll give it a go to then, to see if I notice a difference b/c my shrooms are not really growing at all

Thanks

mini

Phill · 02-25-2001, 01:07 AM

One very important role of your skimmer is to saturate the water with oxygen.

Food for thought
Phill

Drew · 02-25-2001, 03:58 AM

I have to second what Phill said. How are you making sure that the water has enough disolved oxygen in it?

Drew

Brooke · 02-25-2001, 07:49 AM

What happens to your pH at night when the skimmer is running compared to no skimmer during the day?? It would be interesting to know if it has any impact.

Brooke

Doug1 · 02-25-2001, 08:13 AM

I'm not sure running the skimmer at night will have a big impact on pH but it will increase O2 saturation and probably outgas some of the CO2 given off in the respiration process, which may help with pH drop. How much would depend on the size and volume of the skimmer versus the tank volume but definatly a good thing. Some people are able to wean their tanks off the skimmer after having established a very diverse sandbed infauna population, but I kinda feel that in the long run an established refugium of at least 50% the volume of the display tank, and run opposite the lighting cycle will give better results. The smaller hang on or in tank refugiums may be OK for supplementing the feeding, but I think they are way to small to impact pH balance or nutrient export. Even the ATS or similar systems while shallow and small volume do have a fair amount of surface area with intense lighting to promote the growth of algae that locks down free nutrients

Alice · 02-25-2001, 09:25 AM

My 55 was a little over a year old when I let it go skimmerless and I have to say, the corals seem to like it. Cyano is always a threat though. You have to keep up on the waterchanges, feed less and provide extra circulation. I have my return breaking the water surface and a PH aimed at the surface.

My small tank has never had a skimmer and the corals go nuts in there. It's tough keeping enough circulation in there w/out blowing everything over so cyano has been a problem.

Sorry for rambling (I shouldn't try to Instant Message and post at the same time

)What I meant to say was make sure a tank is mature before you go skimmerless and be prepared for it to take a while to adjust. Sounds like you've got a handle on it, MRGUY.

~Alice