If you turn your skimmer off for two days, would your tank be unable to prevent free ammonia?

[brandon429]

Seeking input

Who out there has a system so stocked with fish that if you unplug the skimmer 48 hours, you get .25-.5 free ammonia? Sustained, not just one spike. Looking for systems that run .25 free ammonia w skimmer unplugged, then confirmed zero with them on

I'm looking for current systems where solely the skimmer is the breakpoint between free ammonia and none, fully matured tanks not barely cycled.

We have some ammonia challenge threads where APi says .25 with skimmer off, skimmer is blamed for a small fish bioload causing the .25 I want to see more of these borderline surface area tanks to see how prevalent this stocking density is for current reefers

I think it takes an exceptional amount of fish to cause the condition. 3/4 of the tanks on nano-reef.com are using fish w no skimmer, and no algal binding, and the live rock and sand does just fine. Wanting to see how prevalent the issue is for common tanks

From what I recall over the years, few to no tank's skimmers are the breakpoint between free ammonia and none, in a tank stacked full of live rock and sand.

 

[EriksOasis]

I ran my tank without a skimmer for almost two years and never had an ammonia issue. Had the pump on it burn out and went another week without it without an ammonia spike.

 

[Bronx19]

No longer running a skimmer here.

 

[brandon429]

thank you team. I like to poll for trends sometimes when searching for ammonia origins in tank analysis threads and while it would seem that sludge and protein left to break down in system would spike the ammonia, to me that always painted the picture we were running barely enough surface area for the bioloading we want and that's really not the case.

Those sludges left in the system are fine algae fuel, if not dealt otherwise, but they should not be a tipping point in ammonia since we're all at least a good stack of rocks, if not some sand to boot to handle immediate challenges. Ammonia is in such massive demand in a reef tank, its very very hard to create times where just small amnts outpace the 4+ppm we know a cycled reef tank can handle easily every 24 hrs

 

[Roy 9121]

I didn't know your skimmer had anything to do with the Ammonia level.

 

[EriksOasis]

The skimmer removing doc before it has time to break down into ammonia.

 

[TheHarold]

@brandon429 my skimmer doesn’t work great, I think the pump broke a month ago . Then again I have 6 inches of fish in 70 gallons so I suppose it’s not necessary.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I didn't know your skimmer had anything to do with the Ammonia level.

I don't believe it does, directly.

The case in point was someone (perhaps two in that thread) turning off the skimmer and finding ammonia the next day, but likely because of ammonia in the stagnant water from the shut off skimmer getting into the tank.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/still-having-ammonia-issues.330213/page-4

"
So I conducted a test this weekend and have come to the conclusion that the Protein Skimmer is causing the ammonia in my tank.
Since I only run my protein skimmer during the day, and not at night I tested the water that sits in the protein during night, this is where the ammonia is coming from.

I have a reef octopus 1000 classic hang on back, apparently there is water that sits in the protein once it turned off. The water that sits over night develops ammonia because its not moving."

 

[brandon429]

Web posters teach each other to test / guide their reefs, but we leave out the times they should doubt a reading as part of the welcome imo

new keeper threads need that type of alert imo

nitrite too, I took so much of my nitrite take off your posts. removing nitrite readings from cycling threads has been the ultimate streamliner

api should come with an insert on tighter controls/ambient lighting tweaks etc

it was very surprising to me the first time a series of posts made me doubt api, and it wasn't from searching google. it was the classic live rock, pristine clean tank all animals happy claiming the .25 for weeks, nano reef, no fish bioload. It was the first time biology was the swingvote over a chem test for me.



add to the confusion: some will not have testing confounds, there's likely a titrator among the eyes in this thread who could command a solid clean discernible yellow out of that test kit and call the ammonia issue stopped whenever that condition is deemed to happen. They hate when api is faulted as much as it is.
there have been really tricky ammonia threads where prime wasn't the testing confound, something about API catches ammonia in various species or stages of transition Ill never know. readings hovering in multiples of .25 seem to be common


Titration readings and procedure variances are just powerful ~ They will cause all manner of retail purchase, doubt in reefing as a whole, doubt in toughness of our biosystem imo.


this thread is total reinforcement for why I like searches to be used along with tank cure threads. There's just something about mass live time response vs one offs. I felt inclined to say it cannot be the skimmer above. after this thread here, dang certain ish.
B

 

[brandon429]

the info in this thread from all the skimmer users specifically helps me in future ammonia sourcing threads 100% thanks tons

My own tank digests quite a bit of feed just fine among the rocks and sand and corals (no fish nano) but without fish load driving things these kinds of tanks aren't fair indicators. I w never forget that youtube video of the Leng Sy tank only on bubbled live rock and it was like a six hundred gallon cube with nineteen too many angelfish of full size swimming around unskimmed.

though Im not practiced in the art of skimmer tweaking, that youtube vid was my secret ace in the hole for a few fish not causing free ammonia using live rock as the sole filtration source. it has nineteen too many gigantic fish

its about ten yrs old, the vid. here's its cousin not sure where that older one is but it could be found. he's in an office setting in the one I recall


youtube comments are skimmerless no ats.