Easy there......
Easy there......
Come now, Jawfish, you don't think I'd be throwing a flat ball, do ya? Pics on my website show a
heavily stocked tank, and I've left them there for all that say a skimmerless "can't have a heavy bioload...." Indeed, someone just mentioned something about "needing" a skimmer because they like fish.... I, too, like fish, and that's
one system with about as heavy a bioload as one could conscientiously have
with or without a skimmer. You of course are intelligent enough
to know that corals wouldn't fare thee well in a tank with a Picasso trigger, clown trigger, longhorn cow, choc. chip star,
AND a Red-Sea slate urchin. The tang? He'd be okay.... Indeed, the tang is now in a different tank, a 100g custom 5-sided corner, with
plenty of corals. I wouldn't be talking "skimmerless reef" if I didn't have the experience behind it. Fortunately, I can speak to both heavily-stocked skimmerless, and full-reef skimmerless.
MY pictures of the reef tank wouldn't be much different of many beautiful pics, but if you "need" confirmation that I do indeed have a full-reef skimmerless, drop me an email and I'll send you some pics. Or maybe I'll say if ya don't believe me, you're more than welcome to come over and check it out in person, because a picture could come from anywhere, no? Still better, if ya think I might be a fraud, some folks that made the trip down to Jeff's Exotics with me will gladly whisper in yer ear that it might be better to not insinuate that I might be misleading. At least, I
hope I haven't been misleading... I
DO have a wide range of corals, but it's not about proving that something "awesome" has been accomplished. Indeed, it's "just another reef tank." Tantamount to any argument, it's not about "Fish Whisperer's" reef tank, it's the fact that everytime someone says something "negative" or "forwarning" about skimmerless reefs, there are plenty of folks out here who shake their heads in wonderment.
I don't want anybody reading this to think that anything out of the norm is being accomplished with skimmerless tanks... Indeed, some of us think it is
better to not have a skimmer, and indeed it is clearly
easier to not have one other piece of equipment that could fail/flood. I think skimmers are best left to those with enough experience and plumbing/pressure knowledge to deal with them.
As always, my systems are
always welcome to help me meet new friends from the boards. The general routine is, we meet at a local fish store, and my wife whispers in my ear if she thinks the person is a total nut. I mean, our home is open, but not to anybody weirder than me!!! That would be dangerous!
Then we usually come over, chat fish, and have one of my awesome BBQs. Tankin's great, and there are many ways to do things. I don't think a skimmer allows any sort of
advantage and I think that's key here. Let's all remember that we shouldn't talk too knowingly about what is good/bad/right/wrong unless we feel we have sufficient experience in doing whatever it is we are professing about.
Because just when one person is saying what can/can't be done, there is another person laughing at the suggestion that they are doing the "impossible." My tanks are by no means any sort of measure, nor do I have any special skill or "knowledge." Again, they are basically designed for ease of maintenance,
success, and prevention of mechanical intervention/failures.
Indeed, there's not possibly an
easier way to keep a reef/fish tank... I like beginners to hear
that side of the coin, and like I've said, everyone I've helped start out in the hobby has been greener than caulerpa, but they've had no problems "grasping" this notion that some people think requires some type of "experience or in-depth knowledge." So, by virtue of their success, it debunks any false claims that "skimmerless" should only be tried by those with experience. Indeed, I believe the next phase of reefkeeping with macroalgae has simplified the hobby even further. Certainly, some folks with mondo investment bongs will still cling to an imagined justification that their tanks would "die" without them, but too many people have jumped from this particular floor successfully for anybody still inside the building to say it's a "fatal leap."
Macroalgae = skimmer. One is free, the other is not. Both require maintenance, but if you don't have the desire for any maintenance, then no doubt the hobby experience will be short-lived. And remember, it's best to be careful about saying what can/can't be done, because remember, there's usually always going to be someone there who proves you wrong
by actual experience/tangible proof , and that's rather hard to argue... In fact, success
can't be argued. And just because someone has failed after a few months of skimmerless does not mean that everyone else will do the same.... Indeed, by virtue of the many years of proven skimmerless reefing, it is fair to say that those systems did
NOT fail because there was no skimmer.... What say, in all my redundancy
, have I failed to oft repeat the fact that if a skimmer is "saving" your tank from crashing, you have a much greater problem.... Something is
making it crash, eh? No tank crash, no need for a skimmer... Simplicity is blissful. And no,
not having a skimmer will
not make a tank "crash." You can't make any sort of factual statement that has been conclusively proven to the contrary and not be
wrong. And I do hate saying anybody is wrong, so I'll just plop the numbers out there and ya'll can do your own math and draw your own conclusions.
I suppose I'll get around to a list of all my corals, but that would prove nothing "new and exciting" to the many folks that are doing just the same thing. To us, it's not "amazing", it's just easy, simple, and quite enjoyable. I have, and will continue to encourage all new hobbyists to explore all the tools and methods, and let
them choose which "system" they would find most "user-friendly." So far,
all have ix-nayed the concept of skimming. Seeing my tanks, and those of others, they can
clearly see that beautiful reef tanks can be had without the use of a skimmer... That shouldn't hurt anyone's feelings.
