My first skimmerless system

[Timfish]

Thank you Almees! As you can see from posts here there's individuals afraid of questioning their beliefs. :/ There's more and more research every day showing how critical the right kinds of DOC is to a healthy reef. The stuff on cryptic sponges removing and recycling labile DOC (organic carbon, carbon dosing) 1000 times faster than bacterioplankton is just one of the amazing discoveries and I believe essential for long term success! I've set up scholar.google.com to send me links of any research related to Rebecca V. Thurber, Forest Rohwer, Kim B. Ritchie, Jasper deGoeij and Andreas Haas. Just be warned you'll be getting lots of reading material!

 

[Timfish]

Video of system before it's moved twice next week (mid December 2022) to replace carpet and wall paper. Quite a lot has happened since last video. Notably during Covid many animals (but not all) started doing poorly. Long story short Lysol over spray was getting into the system. Actinodiscus mushrooms that had been in the system almost since it's inception were all lost as well as Fungia plate corals, a Tridacna squamosa, all the baby and one adult Turkey Wing Clams and Purple Stylo. Corals that suffered but were not completely lost were pulsing Xenia, Green/Orange Zoas and Pagoda Coral. Unfazed were the fish (thankfully), all the Aquilonastra starfish as well as the Green Brittlestar and Sea Cucumber, Palau Green Finger and red chalice.

 

[JohnL]

Long story short Lysol over spray was getting into the system.

Sorry Tim

 

[Timfish]

Catching a green brittle star that was added to this system winter of 97-98.

 

[Timfish]

Well, this sucks! Accidentally killed a baby calm when moving this system. Only consolation is this is confirmation of a 2nd species successfully spawning in this system.

 

[Timfish]

Here's a quick video of the system between moves.

 

[Timfish]

Quick video of this 25 year old system about 20 hours after the 2nd move in 8 days. Only loss was one damsel, presumably it got stuck in some of the rock at some point. Some of the sand that's been in this system since it tank was swapped out in 2007 was rinsed in clean aged saltwater and reused and some new live sand was added. Fish are eating and interacting normally and corals have all opened up.

 

[Timfish]

WOOHOO! Found another baby turkey wing clam!

 

[Timfish]

And another!

 

[Osman-ist]

I have also skimmerless system and scientific researches support this is wise . Generally skimmers can remove only 20 – 30% of the measurable TOC in the reef tank water ; the remaining 70 – 80% of the TOC is not removed by skimming .

 

[Timfish]

I have also skimmerless system and scientific researches support this is wise . Generally skimmers can remove only 20 – 30% of the measurable TOC in the reef tank water ; the remaining 70 – 80% of the TOC is not removed by skimming .

Yes, there's also the issue of skewed microbial species and counts and what happens long term with the refractory DOC that can only be used by heterotrophic bacteria (read oxygen reducing) to proliferate. With research in all the life sciences showing disrupted microbial populations is a bad thing and skimmers can only remove the hydrophobic subset leaving the hydrophillic (which includes pathogens) it doesn't stand to reason skimmers can be beneficial for corals. Some corals can adapt and thrive in less than ideal conditions. Those varieties have certainly been cultivated and become quite common but that doesn't justfy continuing to use methodologies contraindicated for sustaining reef ecosystems.