Thinking of going skimmerless.

Palting

Palting

New member
This may seem weird to some people, but I think I need dirtier tank water. Phosphates and nitrates are undetectable, and I can't seem to propagate zoas and softies. SPS are doing excellent, but I've actually lost large zoa colonies and GSP colonies, and softies are just living and not really propagating. I've increased fish feeding to where they actually ignore the food at the end of the feeding, doubled coral feeding as well, and have been doing it for a month now. Some zoas are reappearing where they had completely disappeared before, but nitrates are still undetectable and the biggest changes seem to be an increase in macroalgae growth in the refugium and an increase in skimmer output.

So, I'm thinking, why not take the skimmer off line and see what happens? Better than throwing more food in, only to have the skimmer take it out, yes?
 
What about downgrading your skimmer?

I just think that going with no skimmer would be too drastic, too quick. Especially since you have SPS.
 
Hey, Rhonda! Nice to hear from you again :).

Putting it on a timer sounds like a good idea. Similar to downgrading, except no additional expense of a new skimmer.

I don't believe I can stop water changes. The SPS are consuming a lot of Cal/alk/mag, so much so that kalkwasser + 3 part dosing + weekly 10% WC is having a hard time keeping up. I can maybe try cutting down to once every two weeks.
 
What about increasing your feeding substantially? maybe dosing something like zeovit or the red sea coral nutrition program?
 
Have you validated your test kits are accurate?

If you're having macro algae you've got nitrate and phosphate. Probably being used as it's produced. Try some coral foods - Fauna Marin makes a zoanthus food. Red Sea Reef A and B, or Aquavitro Fuel, or one of the other coral nutrition supplements might also help.

Sent from my Motorola Photon using Tapatalk 2
 
sounds like something is off. I've had GSP survive a 3 hour truck drive in below freezing temperatures completely exposed to the air. When I set my tank back up, it was back the next day
 
I wisk a stick of cyclops eeze around in my tank twice a week untill it looks like cheap chicken noodle soup :) and turn off my skimmer until it is clear again. Slowly but surely all the zoa's and other corals catch something and close up. I don't think having too clean water is an issue, starvation is.

I am no expert on the inner workings of a coral but I have seen enough National Geographic shows on the topic to know that most corals feed their sympiotic algae with stuff they ingest. Not sure if they can even absorb them from the water. Maybe just that a "dirtier" tank has more stuff floating by to be caught.
 
I don't run a skimmer but have a kick a-- fuge and things are going good. I feed a little on the heavy side too. I just got my first couple pieces of SPS though so I can't sleek for there health
 
I too I had this issue. I found that less frequent water changes, 1 a month, and heavy feeding seemed to work wonders. Tank is much happier, and the skimmer is actually doing something now, amazing.
 
Thanks for the responses, all.

I'm trying to find a happy middle ground between a "clean" tank (low nutrients) that's good for SPS, and a "dirty tank" (high nutrients) thats good for softies. I think my tank is too much on the "clean tank" side, hence the softies are starving. I've increased the feeding for fish (gel food, flakes, pellets, nori). I've also increased the coral feeding, target feeding with the pumps off once a week with the occasional added food within the same week (coral frenzy, Mysis, plus bottled phyto, zoo, rotifers). Tank really gets cloudy with every coral feeding, so I'm pretty sure I'm dumping a lot of food in there. Been doing it for a month now. Despite the above, there is no algae in the DT and the nitrates are undetectable. I do have tons of algae in the refugium, and the skimmer output is about 120 cc's a week of dark stinky thick skim. So I think all those nutrients are being taken up more by the refugium and the skimmer, and less by the softie corals.

I just "donated" a few SPS frags to the LFS, just trimmings from overgrowth, had him check the parameters of the bag water I carried them in, and they were the same as my results. I don't think increasing coral feeding any further will do any good, so I'm looking at decreasing nutrient export instead. I don't want to overdo it and compromise the thriving SPS that dominate this tank, though. I was thinking taking the skimmer off line or putting it on a timer is a careful step in that direction.
 
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You could lose the macro I the five and just put live rock in there and keep the skimmer. :) 6 or half dozen I suppose.
 
I'm interested in how this works out.

I've watched my colonial polyps of various type vanish over the past few months while conducting weekly water changes to reduce my 20ish ppm N03 to it's current <5ppm level. The colonies had been showing stable slow growth for over a year prior to this recent decline with infrequent water changes. Simultaneously my Montipora and Euphyllia corals are showing greater extension and growth which was the goal of WC nutrient reduction.

I wouldn't mind not hearing my skimmer but I've been running a skimmer for decades and I'm concerned that losing it's aeration and nutrient export functions might cause more problems than it solves. I've been elevating feeding to try to compensate but I've lost every last zoanthid with yellow polyps and knopia not far behind.

I'll be watching this thread to see what happens.
 
I say try it, but w/ caveats. Do it gradually & test often. One thing I've learned is that changes need to be made slowly. Only bad things happen fast in an aquarium.

I turned off my skimmer over a year ago and the only thing that changed was my pH got a little high during the day. So I hooked up an air stone and it settled back down. Now both my skimmers are in storage. I spend less for electricity this way and my coral doesn't seem to mind.

Keep in mind this is a controversial topic. Many hobbyists firmly believe that a skimmer is the most important equipment they own. Some would prefer to skimp on lighting & circulation just to buy a "top-of-the-line" skimmer. I would not be surprised to see a flame war in here...
 
geaux xman said:
sounds like you need to ditch the softies and up the ante on acro's.
Click to expand...

IME, most softies and some lps like a slightly "dirty" water. Fish poop is food. If you like the sps dominated tank, I agree with geaux xman. I also like the advise of others about timing your skimming. Something like that would keep the "dirty" stuff suspended in the water colunm, which everything will like, including your sps, and periodically export the stuff not being used up by the corals.
 
If your going to use a timer on your skimmer won't that mess up its function?? I know your trying to not spend money here but waveline makes a pump with a soft start so you don't need to worry about it filling too fast and overflowing.

After all isn't the key to skimming consistency?
 
If your going to use a timer on your skimmer won't that mess up its function?? I know your trying to not spend money here but waveline makes a pump with a soft start so you don't need to worry about it filling too fast and overflowing.

After all isn't the key to skimming consistency?
 
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