Natural or do you dose carbon.

[Nano sapiens]

Interesting that you do not use either (carbon or skimmer). Do you have a mixed reef, softies or stony corals? How do you maintain water quality with minimal water changes or frequent small water changes if I may ask all these questions as I seem to always be in a balancing act with my skimmer, carbon and occasional carbon dosing to keep nitrates from getting too crazy. Thanks in advance for input.

The running of a reef aquarium without mech or chem filtration harkens back to the very origins of 'reef keeping' where the goal was to create a balanced system. Filtration was accomplished via live rock and live sand and regular water changes/proper maintenance routine was used to keep the system healthy. Protein skimmers and GAC usage were added a bit later on when the Berlin System was developed which many now consider the start of modern reef keeping.

Small mixed reef (13 years old now) with SPS, LPS, Shrooms, Zoas:

Ye Olde 12g Nano:

I set this nano up with the same KISS principles I applied for my then 55g 10 year old reef aquarium. Most people at the time ran into the same issues that you are experiencing (and still do) with keeping their system balanced. A 'natural' system which is properly setup avoids the bulk of this problem since there are no products used that can rapidly change tank parameters. The flip side is that one needs to be willing to invest the time required to really get to know and understand their reef system as a whole.

 

[Screwgunner]

You can over skim very easily it takes out all your good bacteria. Everyone thinks bigger is better but on the skimmer side of things it is not better. You skim out all yor good bacteria and open up all your real-estate to bad bacteria . I do run activated charcoal. And a algea scubber that is it.