Skimmers, are they really necessary?

[ApoIsland]

I'm seeing a lot of people saying that it's fine to go skimmerless, but not a lot of those folks posting pics of their tanks...

Skimmerless for the last 9 years. There are more negatives than positives to having a skimmer.

Negatives: usually cost money to purchase, maintenance time to clean, potential for malfunction / flood.

There are only two positives of having a skimmer which can be accomplished in many other ways: oxygenation (insignificant effect in most tanks), and nutrient export (never been an issue for me).

Skimmer was the biggest waste of money for me to date besides the AI line of products.

All that being said...the pictures of tanks with skimmers do seem nicer Not sure I would consider that a strong cause and effect argument though. People like myself who run without may just be lazier in general and would never put in the effort it takes to run a reef of the month quality tank regardless of what equipment we had. I know my tank looks better today than it did with a skimmer at least.

 

[WVNed]

My system makes 1 (one) gallon of skimmate a day

I wonder what I would have to do to avoid running a skimmer.

 

[SaltFishTV]

Skimmerless for the last 9 years. There are more negatives than positives to having a skimmer.

Negatives: usually cost money to purchase, maintenance time to clean, potential for malfunction / flood.

There are only two positives of having a skimmer which can be accomplished in many other ways: oxygenation (insignificant effect in most tanks), and nutrient export (never been an issue for me).

Skimmer was the biggest waste of money for me to date besides the AI line of products.

All that being said...the pictures of tanks with skimmers do seem nicer Not sure I would consider that a strong cause and effect argument though. People like myself who run without may just be lazier in general and would never put in the effort it takes to run a reef of the month quality tank regardless of what equipment we had. I know my tank looks better today than it did with a skimmer at least.

So much this!! Same here and my exact thought process. I’ve only had headaches with skimmers, either overflowing or working great and then do a water change and it take a while to break back in..I even know a guy where it caused his tank to have a mini crash due to overflow from the skimmer malfunction randomly and it changed the whole biology of the tank with increased nutrients all of a sudden and caused his SPS to RTN.. I stopped running them and the tank and SPS seem happier

 

[SaltFishTV]

My system makes 1 (one) gallon of skimmate a day

I wonder what I would have to do to avoid running a skimmer.

Dang that’s quite a bit. Do you skim on the wetter side?

 

[schuby]

My system makes 1 (one) gallon of skimmate a day

I wonder what I would have to do to avoid running a skimmer.

I hope that bucket is in an air-tight room or one with a door that only opens to the outside! ;Stinkyfeet

 

[WVNed]

I hope that bucket is in an air-tight room or one with a door that only opens to the outside! ;Stinkyfeet

I run ozone. It doesn't smell that much. It has been disinfected.

 

[ca1ore]

@schuby thanks though I did read that over before I posted.

What I mean is that I wish there were a lot more information about skimming and oxygenation.

Absent such science, I'm skeptical a skimmer typically makes much difference for that to be a factor in choosing to use a skimmer or not. But I could see reasons for thinking it does oxygenate significantly, and so I wish there was more information.

In the meantime, I'm much happier knowing I have an overflow with a good sized weir, a sump with at least one vented drain heading down to it, the drain crash chamber, and all of the chambers in the sump that break surface tension at the water/air surface and thus allow for good gas exchange (eg. water pouring into the filter sock, etc.). To date, I haven't had powerheads or returns that do a lot to the surface on my DT, but I would assume that's a good way to help gas exchange as well.

FWIW, I have long been skeptical of skimmer as oxygenator. If it functions as presumed, with the small bubbles quickly coated with proteins, seems unlikely that they’d be able to also diffuse oxygen into the tank water. I tend to think folks look at a skimmer and figure it looks like it’d oxygenate the water. Whether it actually does seems highly suspect to me.

 

[Rich Klein]

I run a calcium reactor and use a CO2 scrubber feeding my skimmer to maintain a high Ph. Skimmers are not just good for nutrient export.

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

i tell people this all the time, especially when they let their kids play in it!!!eeeeee

 

[JaykS]

@thatmanMIKEson i tell people this all the time, especially when they let their kids play in it!!!eeeeee

Mmmmmmmm

 

[SaltFishTV]

I run a calcium reactor and use a CO2 scrubber feeding my skimmer to maintain a high Ph. Skimmers are not just good for nutrient export.

That’s a useful tool!

 

[Devaji]

LOL not the whole intent Devaji, but why show one when I have hundreds to scroll through for an actual representation of what I am saying?
BUT here ya go:

just giving to a hard time man, as i wanted to see and was to lazy to grt of R2R

 

[Fish man]

good point!

 

[SaltFishTV]

just giving to a hard time man, as i wanted to see and was to lazy to grt of R2R

lol right on

 

[WVNed]

FWIW, I have long been skeptical of skimmer as oxygenator. If it functions as presumed, with the small bubbles quickly coated with proteins, seems unlikely that they’d be able to also diffuse oxygen into the tank water. I tend to think folks look at a skimmer and figure it looks like it’d oxygenate the water. Whether it actually does seems highly suspect to me.

I have 2 skimmers. One recirculates the air from the cup and the other pulls outside air. I am sure the air in the one that recirculates would come to be the same composition as the gasses dissolved in the tank. This is the one I use for ozone.
I expect the other aerates the tank since my PH went up when I connected it to outside air. I think it is reasonable to assume if Co2 propagates out that oxygen goes in at the same time.

 

[schuby]

What I'm getting from the OP is "guilty until proven innocent". There is no open-minded conversation. Everyone has an opinion. No one can present an absolute "law" about the value or detriment of properly using a skimmer. Keeping a reef tank has never been an absolute science.

 

[karamreef117]

It depends, Big tank and a lot of fish then yes. Small tank and with less fish then not really. I used to go by the BRS rule of 20 and under no skimmer a water change will do it.

 

[ca1ore]

I have 2 skimmers. One recirculates the air from the cup and the other pulls outside air. I am sure the air in the one that recirculates would come to be the same composition as the gasses dissolved in the tank. This is the one I use for ozone.
I expect the other aerates the tank since my PH went up when I connected it to outside air. I think it is reasonable to assume if Co2 propagates out that oxygen goes in at the same time.

Dunno, I could coherently (well, maybe semi coherently) argue that the mechanism by which CO2 is 'removed' is not diffusion, rather the result of CO2 being blown off by the water agitation as carbonic acid is quite volatile. CO2 is also much more soluble in water than O2. So I remain skeptical .

 

[WVNed]

Dunno, I could coherently (well, maybe semi coherently) argue that the mechanism by which CO2 is 'removed' is not diffusion, rather the result of CO2 being blown off by the water agitation as carbonic acid is quite volatile. CO2 is also much more soluble in water than O2. So I remain skeptical .

If skimmers blew CO2 off as carbonic acid it wouldn't matter if you hooked it to low CO2 outside air.

 

[ca1ore]

If skimmers blew CO2 off as carbonic acid it wouldn't matter if you hooked it to low CO2 outside air.

Well, in my case it makes no difference .... never has. Anyhow you missed my point also about CO2 dissolving more easily. Doesn't really matter though as I've had this conversation many times and have yet to be swayed (including, BTW, back in my old FW days when I argued that an airstone doesn't directly oxygenate the water). Now if somebody did a DO test with and without skimmer, that'd do it. I have tried, but my DO setup isn't reliable.