Adding Skimmer, Removing Purigen/Chemipure-Blue?

[Haggisman14]

Hey everyone. I've been building out my 29 biocube for about 6 months now, and up until this point have only been using live rock, sand, chemipure blue, and purigien as my filtration. Recently I have been seeing an influx of cyno, and decided that it's time to add a HOB skimmer to the tank. I do have a healthy bioload on the tank, and I think my relatively basic form of filtration/nutrient export just wasn't cutting it.

I do religious water changes every week (5 gallons), and change out the purigen/chemipure blue bags every 3 months, but I just don't think this is enough.

I just ordered the Aquamax HOB 1.5, and should be adding it to the tank on Thursday/Friday. My question is this, now that I will be actively skimming and removing excess nutrients from the tank, do you think it's still important to keep using the purigen/chemipure blue?

I was using those items specifically because I was not skimming, and thought I might be able to get away with it. If I only had 2 fish...maybe, but I don't think it's cutting it anymore.

Any thoughts/options would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

Marc

 

[Midrats]

That skimmer will work well on your tank. I have the sump version on my Reefer Nano which is of similar volume. I find that I don't need any additional filtration other than a little carbon for a few days a month. When I ran mechanical and chemical filtration continuously the skimmer didn't work as well because it didn't have much to skim. Without the floss and carbon the skimmer is able to maintain a nice foam head and consistently skims some pretty nasty effluent. I am under strict instructions to turn on the hood when I clean it.

 

[Haggisman14]

Thanks for the input! I planned on taking the media out. Figured I could always put it back in later if I feel I still need it, but as mentioned, I was only using it as I wasn't skimming.

Thanks!