Do I even need a skimmer?

[tactical error]

Hi all! My Fluval Sea skimmer just quit. I have the fluval flex 32.5 with, I would estimate 20lbs of live rock. The tank has been running for a year and a half, and is stocked with a starry blenny, a damsel (who's a real jerk), a yellow watchman goby, a banaggi cardinal and a mandarin goby. It have various critters including a tuxedo urchin, a cleaner shrimp, and a Pom Pom crab along with probably 15 hermits. Corals are 99% softies and there are two rock flowers. I feed once/day a quarter cube of frozen mysis and a quarter cube of frozen baby brine shrimp. I do weekly 5 gal water changes.

I was researching for a new skimmer that would fit in the rear chamber, and several threads here made me wonder if I even need a skimmer. I'd appreciate your thoughts - thanks in advance!

 

[FishLvR]

Hi all! My Fluval Sea skimmer just quit. I have the fluval flex 32.5 with, I would estimate 20lbs of live rock. The tank has been running for a year and a half, and is stocked with a starry blenny, a damsel (who's a real jerk), a yellow watchman goby, a banaggi cardinal and a mandarin goby. It have various critters including a tuxedo urchin, a cleaner shrimp, and a Pom Pom crab along with probably 15 hermits. Corals are 99% softies and there are two rock flowers. I feed once/day a quarter cube of frozen mysis and a quarter cube of frozen baby brine shrimp. I do weekly 5 gal water changes.

I was researching for a new skimmer that would fit in the rear chamber, and several threads here made me wonder if I even need a skimmer. I'd appreciate your thoughts - thanks in advance!

I would argue you only need a skimmer. I have a sort of tank emergency so I have to move all my livestock to a 22 gallon which is crazy to me, all I am going to run is a skimmer and my reactor which will be full of my bio balls from the tank, floss and a tiny bit of carbon. I suppose that is even over kill but I need this thing to cycle overnight.

 

[BryanM]

Hi all! My Fluval Sea skimmer just quit. I have the fluval flex 32.5 with, I would estimate 20lbs of live rock. The tank has been running for a year and a half, and is stocked with a starry blenny, a damsel (who's a real jerk), a yellow watchman goby, a banaggi cardinal and a mandarin goby. It have various critters including a tuxedo urchin, a cleaner shrimp, and a Pom Pom crab along with probably 15 hermits. Corals are 99% softies and there are two rock flowers. I feed once/day a quarter cube of frozen mysis and a quarter cube of frozen baby brine shrimp. I do weekly 5 gal water changes.

I was researching for a new skimmer that would fit in the rear chamber, and several threads here made me wonder if I even need a skimmer. I'd appreciate your thoughts - thanks in advance!

You just need to manage nutrient export in a reasonable way.

I do not run a skimmer.

 

[Boehmtown]

I've had a 150 Fowler, 113 reef, 29 reef, 10 reef. All with no skimmer. Definitely not needed

 

[tactical error]

Ok, so then explain to me how to manage nutrient export without a skimmer. I kept freshwater for 30 years, and salt is new to me, so I'm still learning!

 

[mp2022]

I don’t run a skimmer currently in my system and my parameters are stable. I also don’t run a refugium or filter socks or other mechanical filtration. I have a bunch of live rock and do a 10% water change every few months. Probably just lucky and my bioload isnt too bad, just have a 5 small to medium size fish, inverts, and a bunch of coral. I am assuming my live rock is doing all the heavy lifting but am no expert.

I used to have all the above in my system 8 months ago and got the idea to slowly ditch all the equipment from my LFS which does SPS/coral aquaculture and has some stunning systems and they dont use skimmers or refugium in their systems, just live rock.

I am moving to a much larger system soon and am considering getting one though as I plan to add more fish and my needs may change.

I will say that I didn’t start with all live rock, and my tank went through a good 6-9 months of ugly phase, but what I found was that the equipment didn’t help much, and in fact tanked my nutrients resulting in a major and painful Dino outbreak for a while. After about 9 months everything settled though, and interestingly there was some mild residual nuisance algae and Dinos that literally disappeared within a week of adding some ocean live rock to my sump and display.

My point is don’t underestimate the importance of natural biological filtration.