I guess i am not sure why "just starting up" means that a skimmer is in the near future. A lot of the tanks that we help each other with here in Fargo are skimmerless by design. They take a lot of slow planning. Some mistakes have been made in the overall process of Brady's tank--fish load may be one of them. But Brady, and I am definitely talking for him--which I know he wouldn't care if I did either way, is well aware of this issue as he gives his fish away to others in the area.
One of the movements here is that of skimmerless and in some cases no water changes either. As long as patience and balance are taken into account, these tanks are some of the best tanks I have seen.
Now on the other hand, as you know, you can get results with a lot of different methods.
We toured some tanks in Grand Forks at the last meeting and they have different philosophies that work for them. Vish and Ice (Jim, I think) have great tanks. Just different methods. They all work towards the same goal of stability. And I would put their tanks up against ours anyday--though it's not a competition.
We--the group of us here--believe that less is more, and that natural biology is the way to go.
Brady will chime in soon...but being that I push for this method here and he actually believes in it as well, I thought I would chime in. Also, I very rarely find any topics worth talking about on RC as it is. But thats a different story....
michael
