Every day brings something new. Colours are getting better and better without skimmer, how is this possible???Well, it is possible biology does the trick.
Untitled by Jacek Kowalski, on Flickr
Untitled by Jacek Kowalski, on Flickr
Last edited:
Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Thank you.
Maintenance is strait forward. Filtration mats are replaced every 1-2 days, activated carbon is change every 30 days, zeolites are change every 8-12 weeks, every day dose of: ZS 1.2ml x2/day, SP 1ml/ day, ZB 5 drops daily, ZF 5 drops weekly, CB 1 ml daily. WC are performed every 1-2 weeks 30-70ltr, depends on my mood. Basically I try to follow KZ maintenance book, except I do not have to clean the skimmer and I dose much, much less then it is written on blue bottles.
Hi Jack;Last year when for the first time I saw system run without skimmer I could only say WOW. So I decided to give a trial.
Hi Jack;
There are far better ways of removing DOC from the water than using a skimmer.
But skimmers do perform a very useful function when keeping sps. The removal of water column heterotrophic bacteria.
I'm not refering to water column bacterial removal in regards to carbon dosing.
There are direct correlations with poor coral health and water column bacterial densities.
Do you use any particular method to deal with this?
I guess efficient removal of bacteria food (DOCs) using ROX for example would be one method.
cheers
I'm not refering to bacterial blooms during cycling either Jack.http://www.marineaquariumservice.com/cloudy-marine-aquarium-water/
In well established tank removal of heterotrophic bacteria is not an issue. This might be an issue when the nutrient cycle is still being established and a balance of the heterotrophic organic reducing bacteria and autotrophic nitrite reducing bacteria have not been fully established yet.
I have never expirence this issue when I removed skimmer from the system.
I dose bacteria regularly, blow the rock, sand and remove detritus from the bottom of the tank.
I was always considered bacteria plankton, one of the best food sources for more of our corals, if o2 levels are not affected. And one major reason i am no using skimmer either. Can you give us a link to those studies showing the opposite?I'm not refering to bacterial blooms during cycling either Jack.
Feldman et al found tanks that utilised skimming & activated carbon had TOC levels at natural coral reef levels but water column bacteria levels at only 1/10.
Tanks that didn't use activated carbon or skimmers had higher TOC levels than natural reef waters but water column bacteria counts about the same.
Feldman noted that sensitive corals, like Acropora do well in the low-bacteria-count tanks but not so well in the tanks with higher bacteria counts.
This and other studies showing direct correlations with poor coral health and water column bacterial densities is what I'm getting at.
Keeping water column bacteria counts in an aquarium lower than on a natural coral reef seems to be a positive for sps health, and methods to reduce it in the aquarium must be considered.
I'm not saying that skimming is the only way to do it though.
This was a comment I read from Steve Tyree.I was always considered bacteria plankton, one of the best food sources for more of our corals, if o2 levels are not affected. And one major reason i am no using skimmer either. Can you give us a link to those studies showing the opposite?
From your link, Feldman’s observation would suggest that certain densities of water column bacteria, above a certain concentration, are detrimental to sps corals no matter the bacteria type.
No; What you just posted are not the author's conclusions. He's proposing possibilities based on assumptions derived from the fact that skimmers only remove bubble sususceptible bacteria. Did you note his use of >>>?From your link
"Aquaria subjected to active filtration via skimming present water column bacteria populations that are approximately 1/10 of those observed on natural reefs. The consequences of this disparity on the long-term health of the tank's livestock are not known. How do reef tank organisms adapt to such a bacteria-deficient environment? Is the whole food web in an aquarium perturbed, or are there compensatory mechanisms that maintain an appropriate energy transduction through all of the trophic levels? Is "old tank syndrome" related to possible nutritional deficiencies stemming from this bacteria "gap"? Alternatively, could "old tank syndrome" be symptomatic of a gradual decrease of bacterial diversity as a consequence of selective skimmer-based removal of only bubble-susceptible bacteria? At present, it is not possible to go beyond speculation on these points - further research is needed."
Authors conclusion are different than yours...
Actually what I quoted is a part from its conclusions chapter of his paper. He concluded that more experiments needed , to determine if the lower bacterial populations and fewer strains of bacteria, counted in skimmed tanks, is the cause of old tank syndrome and other bad staff He pointed that sps do better in skimmed than unskimmed tanks, but in Sanjay's skimmer less tanks , he is not using WC, gac, gfo and I guess he never measure K, trace elements if he is measuring kh , CA and Mg! so it is not surprise that sps doesn't thrive at those tanks and he any way didnt correlate the high bacteria populations with sps health!No; What you just posted are not the author's conclusions. He's proposing possibilities based on assumptions derived from the fact that skimmers only remove bubble sususceptible bacteria. Did you note his use of >>>?
He did note the fact that sps do well in the tanks with lower w.c. bacteria, & not so well in the tanks with natural reef bacteria levels.
I don't use a skimmer.
Well, actually -and he any way didnt correlate the high bacteria populations with sps health!
Well, actually -
"Sensitive corals, like Acropora, do not thrive in the high-bacteria-count/high-TOC-level tanks examined
SPScorals do well in the low-bacteria-count/low-TOC-level tanks."
Anyhow, my point isn't actually about skimmers, & i don't use one. My point is, there's evidence that sps health is affected by water column bacteria densities.
Apologies to Jacek. I just realized i mistakenly called you Jack.
I fully agree the article gives us more questions than answers.
The ultimate proof that SPS do very well without skimmer. Since day one, no skimmer, dry rock but long time cycling, bacterial bloom. But when a few pieces of liverock had been added the biological engine started with the full power.
Your translation was perfect, Jacek in English is Jack.
Hi Jacek. My point regarding w.c. bacteria was never intended to be pro skimmer. Nor am i suggesting that an sps tank must use a skimmer. I don't use a skimmer & I'm not a fan of skimming. The fact skimming decreases bacteria diversity is a possible problem.
My point was that Feldman noted that sps did well in low w.c. bacteria count tanks but not in tanks that had bacteria counts that were equal to, or greater than natural reef waters, & his observation led to his posing the question "Do water column bacteria counts have any relevance to the short-term or long-term prospects for maintaining SPS in captive aquaria?"
I'm suggesting that higher water column bacteria densities could also harbour a high density of, for instance, flagellated heterotrophic bacteria, which would be a problem.
Maintaining lower densities of water column bacteria overall addresses this. I was asking you if you use measures such as UV, or ozone for this reason because your tank is very successful.
Cheers
I do not run ozone or UV why, see this part of the article.
"One concerning point in the experiment described in Fig. 7 involves the role that the UV sterilizer might play in influencing bacterial levels; Are we killing significant numbers of bacteria by UV treatment, thus suppressing population growth? The UV sterilizer in use is a 57W flow-through model from Aqua Ultraviolet. In order to probe this question, we re-ran the "week-in-the-life" experiment with the UV sterilizer off, but the skimmer on continuously, Fig. 8. The observed bacteria/mL values over the course of 5 days fluctuated between 60K and 90K (~ 50% change) for this particular time period. Thus, there did not appear to be any significant bacteria population increase in the water column when the UV sterilizer was off, and it is probably safe to conclude that the UV sterilizer does not have a significant effect on the bacteria population levels in the tank’s water column."
skimmers only remove pelagic bacteria. They have no effect on benthic bacteria.I think stability is the answer, biological stability. For some reason system without skimmer is more stable in my opinion. Bacterias living in LR, ceramic bed, zeolites give no room for flagellates or cyano development.
"The Coral Holobiont
A coral's holobiont is comprised of close associations between the coral animal itself, its symbiotic zooxanthellae, and a diversity of associated microbes including bacteria, archaea, algae, and fungi. These associations can take place in the coral's immediate environment, on its surface, within its tissues, and within its skeleton (if present). This paradigm emphasizes the potential contributions of each component to the overall function and health of the coral (Rypien, 2010). The dynamic nature of these relationships can be seen in a comparison between freshly collected corals from the Red Sea region that were then placed into marine aquaria. A microbial community shift in the bacteria inhabiting the surface mucus layer was documented for collected corals when placed into the captive marine aquarium. The differences that emerged between corals from natural and captive environments suggested an adaptation of the mucus bacterial communities to the different conditions (Kooperman, 2007).
Disruptions within a coral's holobiont have the potential to negatively impact the coral's health. Altered bacterial community structures have been linked to both coral disease and bleaching (Kvennefors, 2010). Coral bleaching occurs if the endosymbiosis between corals and their symbiots disintegrates during stress (Ainsworth, 2008). Even so, shifts in the holobiont's bacterial community component may not be a direct cause of coral bleaching. While bacterial communities play important roles in coral stasis and health, environmental stressors appear to be the primary triggers for coral bleaching, and bacterial involvement in patterns of bleaching appear to be the result of opportunistic colonization (Ainsworth, 2008).”