To skim or not to skim?

[ATC]

So I have got a 38 Gallon Nuvo AIO in my room and as of right now the plan is a single dwarf lion, some zoas, some cleanup crew that I am sure will be on constant replacement due to the lion, and its current single resident a purple stripe dottyback. The question at hand is about skimming I have been running a hydor slim skim that came with the tank and although it does its job it is unbearably loud so the question at hand would be is there a skimmer that I can run that will be tolerable or is there a way to run the tank without skimming at all that doesn't require constant water changes. Thanks in advance.

 

[Dolphins18]

I dont skim AIO tanks either. Its a PITA. Zoas should be fine in a tank that isn't skimmed.
You won't need to do water changes all the time, but every few weeks would be helpful.

 

[Waynerock]

The problem with the small skimmers is they just don’t work well. The big boys are killer at what they do but for our small tanks we get mostly a little bit of gas exchange and that’s about it. In my son’s WB 20 I bought the little white skimmer ( most recommended) and after 2 months of dealing with it either not skimming or filling up over night I took it off line. That was November and I cant say I see any problems. Granted I have 2 fish a couple nems and some softy’s and snails and conch so bioload is small. I would not feel comfortable not using a skimmer on my reef tank but your tank should be fine. Of course it all depends on bioload and your biggest benefit would be gas exchange.

 

[Spare time]

I can't imagine you would need one for a single dwarf lion. They are not very active fish.

 

[ATC]

I dont skim AIO tanks either. Its a PITA. Zoas should be fine in a tank that isn't skimmed.
You won't need to do water changes all the time, but every few weeks would be helpful.

I usually do a %20 Bi weekly on both my tanks but the lfs told me If I run no skimmer on the aio that I would need to to more frequent smaller changes. Should I be running carbon or other media filtration to offset the missing skimmer?

 

[Dolphins18]

I usually do a %20 Bi weekly on both my tanks but the lfs told me If I run no skimmer on the aio that I would need to to more frequent smaller changes. Should I be running carbon or other media filtration to offset the missing skimmer?

Carbon won't do anything as far as offsetting the skimming, but I run it on my smaller tanks. Makes the water a bit clearer.
I think sticking with the same water change schedule would be perfectly fine. I am not fully convinced small skimmers designed for AIO tanks do much of anything.
Most important thing is to be sure there is some surface agitation creating gas exchange. Just one of the return nozzles aimed a little higher toward the surface would do.

 

[zoasaholic]

You don’t need a skimmer to have a successful reef , if bio load is low
To much WC in a small tank can reset the tank to zero
I would test N03 P04 before any WC to get some ideas/how often need to do WC