My first skimmerless system

[MurphyLong]

I thought I'd start a thread about the first skimmerless system I started almost 20 years ago. For this first post here's a video when it was 17 years old: http://youtu.be/5AnmQXmE8d0 and for those wanting to know about the filtration setup it's just an empty sump: http://youtu.be/WDj0daKV2B8 In the video's the original animals added in 1997 include the Purple Tang, Green Brittle Star, Watermelon, Pin Stripe and Purple mushroom polyps and leather Toadstools. Recent water parameters are:

Recent water parameters:

Alkalinity 5-10 dKH
pH 7.8 - 8.1
Salinity 1.022 - 1.027
Temp 76 - 78
Nitrate 1 mg/l
PO4 2 mg/l

And the tank is 210 gallons (24" x 24" x 84"). It gets a 15 gallon water change each week (roughly 6-7% guessing the total system volume is around 220 gallons). Evaporation is 5 - 10 gallons a week during the summer and winter, less during the fall and spring and besides adding fresh water before cleaning the new saltwater is usually weak to make up for increased seasonal evaporation.

Dosing is a combination of CaribSea's Buffer Plus and Aragamight in an auto feeder so it drops in a little early each morning.

Thanks for all of this information!

 

[Timfish]

I see you don't have wave makers either? just air bubbles right and the return pump moves your water and seems to be working for you. I always thought when you dont have much water movement in the tank you get cyno build up in dead areas and all over the sand but not in your tank so another plus. do you have SPS in tank cant seem to see on video?
cheers

I haven't seen much of a correlation between water flow and cyano long term in my tanks. If there's something that disrupts the feeding of the corals cyano is often the first to respond. I do not focus on trying to get rid of cyano outside of manual removal, siphoning it off during water changes. Once corals get back into feeding heavy in my experience they outcompete nuisance algae.

There are so called "SPS" in the tank. All the corals that have calcium in their structure which includes the Siniularia foliata and so called "LPS" do not grow fast with the low calcium and magnesium.

 

[Vio]

I think skimmerless got nothing to do when have only LPS , they do better on high Nitrate and PO4, i got one experiment tank 40 Gal. B, Nitrate 25-50 ppm, PO4 1.5 ppm , i got 99% Mush. they explode, NO hair algae.

 

[karimwassef]

I'm skimmerless without N or P and with SPS

 

[AquaTDV]

I'm skimmerless without N or P and with SPS

I am another one who was skimmerless for many years with some great results. The system was bullet proof, I could grow anything I wanted. Unfortunately the Gigas clam out grew the 240 and I had to upgrade tanks. But this system will be skimmerless once it is a year old.

 

[Timfish]

To be honest using the colloquial terms "SPS" and "LPS" as an indicator of an animals environemntal requirements I think only continues to perpetuate misunderstandings of animals nutritional requirements and unneccessarily results in their deaths. Look at what is being propagated in our aquariums. Many of the so called "LPS" that are supposed to be "easy" or more tolerant than "SPS" still cannot be propagated like many of our acros, montis, birdsnest, seratiopora and poccilopora. At the least what we should be doing is looking at the distribution of a species on reefs. Species that have very limited distribution or are found only in very specific conditions should be left to the experts. And this includes many of the so called "LPS". What I find annoying is this data has been around for over 35 years and is available online at http://coral.aims.gov.au/info/spatial.jsp

 

[vikinglord13]

I've re-skimmed (lol) this thread and I don't think I saw you mention water changes. I know Glenn Fong doesn't, I don't recall if you incorporate intentional water changes into your husbandry regimen. Do you Tim?

 

[Tinkanator2000]

And the tank is 210 gallons (24" x 24" x 84"). It gets a 15 gallon water change each week (roughly 6-7% guessing the total system volume is around 220 gallons). Evaporation is 5 - 10 gallons a week during the summer and winter, less during the fall and spring and besides adding fresh water before cleaning the new saltwater is usually weak to make up for increased seasonal evaporation.

 

[Tom Shewchuk]

Just had to subscribe to this. I disconnected my skimmer a month ago, because I just got tired of screwing with. The tank actually looks better. I have a lot of circulation in my sump, and my tank, a 60G cube, about 77G total volume. Water changes are 5G a week with Reef Crystals. SPS, LPS, a few softies, and a light fish load. A mixed tank. So far so good!

 

[Timfish]

To clarify my first post when I obliquely mentioned it, I do 15 gallon water changes weekly. Depending on evaporation and how closely I've kept up with it I may add up to 15 gallons fresh water before a water change or I may do just a water change with reduced salinity to compensate. If all I do is just wipe off the algae and a water change it's about 20-25 minutes to do the weekly maintenance.

 

[Twoface14]

Been skimmerless for around 9 months and to be honest I think it's the best decision I've made. Happened by accident but not going back was a great decision. I'm sps dominant and only change 5 gallons a week or every other week. I also have a lot of lps as well.

 

[karimwassef]

Just to weigh in with more clarity. I'm skimerless but I do use high volume air injectors to maintain the gas exchange with the outside air. Surface agitation alone does not work for me.

 

[Timfish]

Thought I'd update After not being very consistant removing some Anthelia around some of the acros and losing a couple I replaced a couple of rocks.

Alk 5.5
Ph 7.9
T 78
Salinity 1.027
Calcium 400

Here's current pictures:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/arcipsbucke...humb.jpg.b270f15391efc116af9d82a3f08ecf29.jpg

http://s3.amazonaws.com/arcipsbucke...humb.jpg.8c007999e22229e3b724a2ecbfa94330.jpg

http://s3.amazonaws.com/arcipsbucke...1849.jpg.28e7fc72a89df44edc09fbb2910ef9f1.jpg

http://s3.amazonaws.com/arcipsbucke...humb.jpg.988dd409143cfe3abb72518d2cc0fb9f.jpg

http://s3.amazonaws.com/arcipsbucke...humb.jpg.2c4e5a053d4167a0a665889d1f513ff4.jpg

http://s3.amazonaws.com/arcipsbucke...humb.jpg.5a0182a691a6eb512332f7650d63ed94.jpg

http://s3.amazonaws.com/arcipsbucke...humb.jpg.101de7501a86b9d7f4290aa38491c9de.jpg

http://s3.amazonaws.com/arcipsbucke...4053.jpg.286b5fe3abdaaec792c15cfabc06a308.jpg

http://s3.amazonaws.com/arcipsbucke...humb.jpg.4f8ecae1e782980e644538280e6fb062.jpg

http://s3.amazonaws.com/arcipsbucke...humb.jpg.24059b0ea4462c06143adcb4aa58fb8e.jpg

 

[Fredfish]

Great thread! One thing that many overlook is that reefs produce a lot of algae, but it is immediately consumed.

I remember an experiment where small sections of reef 2 feet cubed were sectioned off to prevent grazers from getting at the rock. Those areas very quickly started to look like a badly maintained reef tank.

Coral reefs are extremely productive systems, but organics cycle very quickly and are mostly bound in live organisms.

 

[Timfish]

Great thread! One thing that many overlook is that reefs produce a lot of algae, but it is immediately consumed.

I remember an experiment where small sections of reef 2 feet cubed were sectioned off to prevent grazers from getting at the rock. Those areas very quickly started to look like a badly maintained reef tank.

Coral reefs are extremely productive systems, but organics cycle very quickly and are mostly bound in live organisms.

Thank you! I think we saw the same PBS show! I've tried finding it a couple times but haven't had any luck. Martin Moes research that was written about 20 years ago in Instant Oceans' "Reef Notes" did a pretty good job of tying the decline of the Caribbean reefs to the dieoff of the Diadem spp. urchins in 1983.

Forest Rohwer's book "Coral Reefs in the Microbial Seas" discusses this also. Overfishing reefs lets macroalgae proliferate and outcompete corals.

Andreas Haas did some experiments 3 years ago and he found algae actually is releasing DOC compounds that promote heterotrophic bacteria (oxygen depleting and nutrient enriching) bacteria that inderectly or directly impact corals ability to compete against the algae.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3719129/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23303369

 

[vikinglord13]

Very interesting thoughts, puts more emphasis of a quakity CUC and algae grazers like tangs or blennies I think.

Tim, do you plan on posting a tank update vid on your youtube channel?

 

[Timfish]

Yeah, but it'll be a few weeks. I've been wanting to set up my camera dolly for awhile but because of the glare off the windows I need to do it before sunrise or after sunset.

 

[Subsea]

Been skimmerless for around 9 months and to be honest I think it's the best decision I've made. Happened by accident but not going back was a great decision. I'm sps dominant and only change 5 gallons a week or every other week. I also have a lot of lps as well.

Gorgeous tank.
I never did like skimmate as nutrient export. It is a marvelous thing to see a mature reef tank in operation. Multiple food webs processing and feeding the next interdependent level of processors. When I see numerous filter feeder with fans pumping, spaghetti worms undulating I like it.

 

[Subsea]

The last skimmer that I used was the original Sanders with the wooden airstone back in the mid 80s

As Timfish mentioned, I have also found that the more 'natural' approach (no mechanical or chemical filtration, in my case) has resulted in more robust systems throughout the decades. My previous mid-sized 'mixed reef' ran for nearly 10 years before I took it down and my current small nano has been up for nearly 9 years (some of the corals in the current system are 18 years old).

However, the original simple reef keeping methodologies have somewhat fallen by the wayside as it's difficult to compete with the 'sexy/cool' factor of having a system with all the bells-and-whistles.

+10 on what Nano said. I have been skimmerless for 25 yrs. Two months ago, I converted my 30G mud/macro refugium to a mud cryptic zone filter. I just turned out the lights.

 

[vikinglord13]

What are your guys' opinion on using Ozone? It seems lije an effective tool to help protect a system, especially with all of the chemical warfare that occurs amongst our corals. It's not like we have millions of gallons of ocean to dilute all that crap haha