Is a protein skimmer necessary?

B

BriGuyRN

New member
So I have had my tank up and running for about five months with zero issues. It is a fish only system. 60 gallons. Fluvial G6 filter. Aquamaxx Protein Skimmer.
Every two weeks I do maintenance. I do a 15 gallon water change, vacuum the crushed coral, and do filter maintenance.

My question is, do i REALLY need to run the skimmer. Truthfully, I barely collect anything out of it, and my parameters are always fine. My protein skimmer is pretty loud, and I would love not to "have" to run it.

Advice appreciated.

Fish in my system:
Two clowns, two green chromis, one fire shrimp, several snails, yellow tang, bi color angel.
 
Since you have the equipment (and i assume you paid a pretty buck for it) I'd concentrate on finding a potential solution to the noise. A skimmer is not a mandatory thing for sure but it's always a very good part of a SW filtration system. I did run my tank without a skimmer for a few months in the beginning but since adding one I'd never personally take it out
 
I don't use my skimmer. I hate the noise and cleaning it. I just change my filter floss much more often.

Alternate advice, just run it when you're not enjoying the tank. Turn it on before you leave for work. Turn it off when you get home. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.
 
somewhere out there a person has a damsel and every day it swims around in dirty, brown water and just never seems to die. to me this seems cruel and an example of bad husbandry but to someone else it's living proof that you don't need all that fancy equipment to keep fish.
see what i mean?
i imagine a person could go without skimming but then again, is that the best solution for your fish?
 
Which Aquamaxx skimmer do you have? I've had the Hob-1 on my old 29gal and recently started using the ConeS CO2 on my new 125gal. Both pulled a ton very reliably. I wonder if that canister filter is interfering with the skimmer.
 
Its not mandatory, no but if you don't have one you need to make sure your maintaince if faultless, and I would suggest weekly not bi-weekly.

If you have one use it...find out the problem and fix it....
 
I have a friend who just has a very large fuge and his tank has a very heavy bioload, no skimmer. tank runs fine. In fact he just bred clowns successfully and cardinals.
 
It's one of those things that's universally accepted to help maintain a clean and healthy tank from professional store owner to hobyiest everyone agrees that it is always a benefit so I use it.

Personally if my skimmer was producing literally nothing I would triple check and make sure everything's setup correctly.
 
Like posters above said; if you already have it, why not just use it. I would try to find out what is making it so noisy. After seeing (and smelling) how dark the skimmate is,
I would not take it off line.

I have an Aquamaxx HOB-1 (along with an Eheim canister, that has carbon and GFO) on my FOWLR 40B. It's not silent, but it's not intolerably noisy either. I have to empty the collection every 3-4 days. I have a pair of clowns, a cardinal, a royal gramma, a six-line wrasse and lawnmower blenny. Small snails and hermit crabs don't really count.
 
reefbroao said:
I have a friend who just has a very large fuge and his tank has a very heavy bioload, no skimmer. tank runs fine. In fact he just bred clowns successfully and cardinals.
Click to expand...

I hope I can get to that point one day. As of now, I'm waiting for the six months mark to start trying corals, again. :headwallblue:
 
Do you need one? Nope. I ran my 60g cube for 22 years without and kept a variety of soft corals with a few LPS as well as a fair amount of fish. My 150DT/120fuge/50sump system is skimmerless as well and I am using it to grow out too many frags to count. I'll be setting up a dedicated frag tank soon, and probably won't run a skimmer on it either, but with just corals, the bioload will be minimal.

Will it make life easier for both you and your fish if you do run a skimmer in the average mixed reef? Certainly. I have one (ASM G2) on my 120DT/40sump system and love it. It is a mostly SPS reef with some LPS and a few mushrooms, as well as a medium bioload of fish. The skimmer pulls out a whole bunch of gunk that otherwise would almost certainly interfere with the basic biological processes of the various corals.

If you have one, figure out why it is not working up to your expectations. They can be rather finicky to get dialed in but can help most systems.
 
billdogg said:
Do you need one? Nope. I ran my 60g cube for 22 years without and kept a variety of soft corals with a few LPS as well as a fair amount of fish. My 150DT/120fuge/50sump system is skimmerless as well and I am using it to grow out too many frags to count. I'll be setting up a dedicated frag tank soon, and probably won't run a skimmer on it either, but with just corals, the bioload will be minimal.

Will it make life easier for both you and your fish if you do run a skimmer in the average mixed reef? Certainly. I have one (ASM G2) on my 120DT/40sump system and love it. It is a mostly SPS reef with some LPS and a few mushrooms, as well as a medium bioload of fish. The skimmer pulls out a whole bunch of gunk that otherwise would almost certainly interfere with the basic biological processes of the various corals.

If you have one, figure out why it is not working up to your expectations. They can be rather finicky to get dialed in but can help most systems.
Click to expand...

Impressive.

Do you have tips and tricks of how to have a successful skimmerless system?
 
newbie2014 said:
Impressive.

Do you have tips and tricks of how to have a successful skimmerless system?
Click to expand...

Frequent large water changes, run carbon 24/7/365, and keep an eye on PO4, use GFO as needed.

And - just to add to the equation - the 60g was sumpless as well - I used a dual biowheel HOB and a canister filter. Old School CAN work.

 
billdogg said:
Frequent large water changes, run carbon 24/7/365, and keep an eye on PO4, use GFO as needed.

And - just to add to the equation - the 60g was sumpless as well - I used a dual biowheel HOB and a canister filter. Old School CAN work.

Click to expand...

Thank you. That sounds easy enough. Now, did you run carbon/GFO in the HOB/canister filter or in a separate reactor?

Simple and beautiful tank.
 
If I didn't have a skimmer I'd deff run carbon
Idk if I'd run carbon with a tang in the tank, because of the HLLE risk. Rinsing really well before use is a must.

I ran without a skimmer for about a year. I think it helps if your other maintenance is on point. I change my filter socks every other day like clock work, and blow off my rocks / vacuum my sand bed every week during a 10% water change.

I don't think any one aspect of husbandry replaces the other, so it's not like once you get a skimmer you don't have to do water changes. Rather, the cleaner your tank is the more wiggle room you have. So if you've got a big algae scrubber, or don't feed very much, your less reliant on the skimmer.

Even now I only use the skimmer intermittently. I'm upgrading so it's way too big for my now-tank. If it runs all the time I never really get a nice head so I run it like 4-5 hours a day until it's not producing anymore. You could try just running it while your at work, but you ought to tune it up or maybe clean it, so it's working right to begin with.
 
While protein skimmers are definitely a nice tool to have, no, they are not necessary. With so many beautiful nano tanks out there that don't use a protein skimmer it just goes to show. Whatever's being done to accomplish this on a 10 gallon tank can be done on a 20 gallon tank, a 30 gallon tank and so on and so forth. GL.
 
newbie2014 said:
Thank you. That sounds easy enough. Now, did you run carbon/GFO in the HOB/canister filter or in a separate reactor?

Simple and beautiful tank.
Click to expand...

Thanks.

GFO was in a TLF 150 reactor hanging off the back. Carbon was in the canister filter, along with a bunch of rubble rock to add biological filtration.

The downside is that cleaning the canister becomes a royal PIA, and as such, becomes the first thing to be put off. Stay on top of it and it can work.
 
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