Intank skimmer - USE IT or LOSE IT?

Skimmer - Use it or Lose it for a 30 gal with Canister Filter

  • Use it

    Votes: 3 60.0%
  • Lose it

    Votes: 2 40.0%

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    5

davy31

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Hey! So this is a question about skimming and how important is it or isn't. Now I have a 30 gal with 2 clowns, 1 puffer and a blenny. It is stocked mainly with LPS and Softies. There are 2 small frags of SPS. The filtration is a fluval canister. I use 2 tunze wavemakers pointed towards the top for gas exchange.The skimmer I use is an aqua-medic midi flotor.

A few months ago I realised my nutrients were at 0 and the tank ran extremely clean and my corals were not happy.

After crawling through the forum, I find a general theme stating that a skimmer is good to have but not a dealbreaker for a reef tank. But most people who have stated that also use a sump. I tend to disagree when people say you can't run a saltwater tank on a canister filter, but thats for another day.

Considering my tank inhabitants and canister filter ---> is it better to run it with an intank skimmer or to remove it as it takes up a lot of space inside the aquarium.
A recurring argument is oxygenation? Is more oxygen driven by the use of a skimmer or more surface agitation?

Below is an older pic of my aquarium, I just wanted to use it to show ya'll the intank skimmer.

IMG_20211006_124325.jpg
 
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Quietman

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Skimmers of course aren't necessary for successful tank. However removing an established skimmer is changing how your tank manages nutrients. Go slow if you're not using an alternate method for nutrient management such as ATS or water changes to prevent nutrients increasing too quickly.

Put skimmer on timer and only run at night for example. If that's fine for a week or two reduce run time further.

As for oxygen, with moderate surface agitation your tank should be just fine. But again, monitor tank response with incremental changes to system.
 

dk2nt9

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There are dissolved organics and metabolic waste, and nitrates and phosphates. You can have dirty looking tank with foamy water and undetectable by average test kits nitrates and phosphates.

To keep nitrates and phosphates in a detectable (at Salifert test sensitivity) range, either feed more or dose them, starting with phosphates, and see what will work better for you.

For removing the other part, protein skimmer and water changes. With a lot of pollutants 10-20% water changes alone could be not enough.

SPS frags may be not happy with alkalinity swings too.
 

Mr. Mojo Rising

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I would suggest that a new HOB skimmer should be your next major purchase

In tank skimmer will take too much room (I have a 32 gallon, I would hate an in-tank skimmer), and I went with a canister filter for a year, honestly, I found the cleaning and maintenance such a PITA for such a small tank. For the past couple years I've been running a small HOB filter for carbon/phosguard/flow, it works well and easy cleaning.
 

Dkmoo

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Thats a very young looking tank. Ur nutrients are at 0 bc its currently being absorbed into the sand bed and dry rock. I wouldn't put too much emphasis on skimmer being the cause of your issue.

You need to wait until your rock's pores and sandbed reaches saturation before you can get a true picture of where and how your nutrient is running through your system. This saturation usually happens when you see yiur rock turning green and see worms and other microbeasts popping up in your sandbed.

Feeding more and having a heavier bioload can help making the saturation faster but will also introduce more instability, best is to just be patient and let time and nature do its thing.

This is why many recommend not adding a lot of corals all at once before the tank matures. Its not impossible, just much harder bc what you can measure with the test kits is only the tip of the iceberg, so its much more difficult to figure out how the "unmeasured" factors are negatively impacting coral survival.
 

Mastering the art of locking and unlocking water pathways: What type of valves do you have on your aquarium plumbing?

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  • None.

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