Who has replaced their skimmer with alternate methods?

[bfortune76]

What are your long term results? I have always had issues running too clean with unreadable N and P. I am considering turning my skimmer off and using it as a "just in case" backup while controlling nutrients with my ATS and filter socks and DOC with My carbon reactor. thoughts?


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[Vio]

Protein Skimmer may be a way to big for your tank or demand , you may have to add more fished or feed more, zero # is bad or your tester kt are out.
So far P.S. is the best for long time,

 

[bfortune76]

I have a 75 display and 40 gallon sump with 100-150 lbs of rock. I'm using a reef octopus 150 int classic, carbon reactor with about 1 cup of carbon in a reactor, a turbo aquatics algae scrubber, and I change filter socks as soon as they start overflowing which is about 3 days. Livestock is
Yellow tang
One spot foxface
Coral beauty
Fire fish goby
Banggai cardinal
2 clownfish
Nem
Two hand sized brittle stars
100 assorted snails
Small handful of SPS, LPS, and zoas (just recently started over due to a move)

I feel like I am stocked enough and feed pretty heavy as is but wouldn't mind a wrasse.

I'm just wondering if anyone has run an ATS successfully in place of a skimmer.


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[bfortune76]

Also forgot, after going 5 years with sand I decided to go bare bottom this time around and see how it works out.


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[ThRoewer]

I have a system with a 30 and a 20 gallon tank that are now for a couple of months without a skimmer. There are no corals in the system, only fish, shrimp, and snails. The 30 gallon "display" tank is pretty much a Caulerpa jungle (in most places actually more of a solid Caulerpa mass) with a pair of yasha gobies, a pair of yellow assessors, and a pair of circus gobies while the 20 gallon "sump" houses 3 tiger jawfish and a pair of Indonesian percula. Water changes are rather infrequently.
But this is more of a holding system than a display.

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[slief]

I have a 75 display and 40 gallon sump with 100-150 lbs of rock. I’m using a reef octopus 150 int classic, carbon reactor with about 1 cup of carbon in a reactor, a turbo aquatics algae scrubber, and I change filter socks as soon as they start overflowing which is about 3 days. Livestock is
Yellow tang
One spot foxface
Coral beauty
Fire fish goby
Banggai cardinal
2 clownfish
Nem
Two hand sized brittle stars
100 assorted snails
Small handful of SPS, LPS, and zoas (just recently started over due to a move)

I feel like I am stocked enough and feed pretty heavy as is but wouldn’t mind a wrasse.

I’m just wondering if anyone has run an ATS successfully in place of a skimmer.


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Even the best skimmers can only remove about 30% of the dissolved organics. Plus, an oversized skimmer won’t remove anymore DOC’s than a properly sized one. In fact, it can be quite the opposite result since over sized skimmers tend to be inconsistent when the load is too low for the skimmer sizing. The end result is that the the skimmer will idle along while DOC’s tend to increase until there is enough for the skimmer to build a proper foam head. Then the skimmer will skim properly for a few days until the DOC’s are reduced enough that the skimmer can’t create enough foam to fill the neck and overflow into the cup which is what I refer to as idling along. Then the DOC’s increase again and the cycle repeats resulting in inconsistent skimming and dissolved organic levels that rise and fall and rise and fall. Also, skimmers do more than just remove DOC’s. They provide gas exchange which is often very beneficial for a tank while also helping to maintain higher pH levels.

If your No3 and Po4 levels are truly 0, your issue isn’t your skimmer. It’s more than likely the ATS stripping the tanks of nutrients. If it were me and my levels were undetectable, I’d remove the ATS before removing the skimmer as that will be more effective in getting some detectable nutrients and maybe removing the filter socks. The skimmer will remove some of the dissolved solids that pass through the sump anyways and since we ideally do need some No3 and Po4 for our corals, removing the socks and shutting off the ATS will help with that.

 

[herostar]

I ran my 70g system on just water changes for about 5 years after I broke my skimmer in a move. You have to be religious about water changes for it to work. It was amazing what going an extra week or two between water changes would do to the tank. Be careful, because there is definitely a "point of no return" with regards to nuisance algae, and it comes faster than you think.

That said, I put a new skimmer in my system about a year ago and the tank looks better... makes me wonder why I went without one for so long (ran the tank for 7 years with a skimmer before the old one broke...)

 

[Michael Hoaster]

Yes, I've been without a skimmer for around five years. My alternative method is to use plants as both the decoration and filtration. I also have a rich sand bed detrivore community to process detritus. I like employing Nature to actually build a functioning mini-ecosystem, harnessing natural processes. Nature has so much to teach us!

 

[Timfish]

Here's two of my skimmerless systems

90 Gallon Mixed Reef
https://youtu.be/4t8IjelZwUk

Mixed Reef started in 1997, 10-07-19
https://youtu.be/dh_nLhj1QXc

Sadly Advanced Aquarist is defunct now but you should still be able to pull these research articles on GAC, TOC (DOC + POC) skimming and bacterial counts (many of the advertising links will be broken). Feldman, et all, identified two different metrics that could be used by the skimmer industry that could be used to show what a skimmer is doing and compare to other skimmers but there's still no way to actually quantify what a manufacturer claims.

Granular Activated Carbon Pt 1
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/1/aafeature1

Granular Activated Carbon Pt 2
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/2/aafeature1

Total Organic Carbon Pt 1
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/8/aafeature3

Total Organic Carbon Pt 2
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/9/aafeature2

Protein Skimmer Performance, Pt 1
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2009/1/aafeature2

Protein Skimmer Performance, Pt 2
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2010/1/aafeature

Skimmate Analysis
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2010/2/aafeature

Bacterial Counts in Reef Aquarium Water
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2011/3/aafeature