How long can I go skimmerless?

T

trey85stang

I had a mishap with my hob-skimmer and had a small flood.. anyways.. I was mad when I was tkaing my skimmer off so it was broken in the process of removal :) (it felt good doing that too)

Anyways.. I have a 46g, with about 40lbs of rock, a small clown and a small puffer (dont know the type but its no bigger then my small clown) & some dieing xenia. Will this setup be ok for a few weeks (maybe longer...) wihtout a skimmer?

This tank is neglected as it is.. but I am going to be getting it back to a healthier state.. I am planning on doing 15g water changes every other day for the next 2 weeks or so until my nitrates go down to below 10 (per Marc's site :D ). I will not even say how high they are right now.. but they are high.
 
I've been going skimmer-less on my 58 for about IDK 2-3 months and have seen no reprocussions yet, although I am planning on adding a fancy shmancy MRC skimmer soon! I'd say you'd be fine fore a while especially with all those water changes. My 'trates hover around 20-40 but I'm not worrying much just change 10 gals every about 2-3-4 weeks lol. Its been a while since I ran out of salt though...

Come on man just tell us your 'trate levels please :?
 
My nitrates today were 1.5ppm. Yep, darn close to 0. I honestly can' t believe it.
 
I use Salifert test kits. In this case, it was almost clear. :)
 
I've had a 20G skimmerless for almost a year now. The key is changing water and having real low stocking levels. With your nitrates as high as they are I would do 50% water changes honestly.

No skimming is not a problem it is just more work!
 
@raggedfinfirefish wrote:
uh oh said:
:(

@Marc wrote:
My nitrates today were 1.5ppm. Yep said:
I hope to be there one day :D


@kwl1763 wrote:
I've had a 20G skimmerless for almost a year now. The key is changing water and having real low stocking levels. With your nitrates as high as they are I would do 50% water changes honestly. No skimming is not a problem it is just more work! said:
50% changes every other day would be better? That wouldn't cause a cycle would it?
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No, it will not cycle. Change the water daily if you must. You can get these numbers down by the principle: Dilution is the Solution to Pollution.
 
I'm seriously beginning to think water changes are the most misunderstood part of maintnenance.

The nitrifying/denitrifying bacteria are on/in the substrate and rocks. Very little is in the water coulmn. You can do 90% water changes without issues. The thing you do have to do is match salinity, temp, and pH very close. On a large one I also try to match the alk and calcium pretty close.

In my 20G skimmerless I change 15G of water every 2 weeks (which takes the water down to the sandbed for a minute) now and virtually no other maintenance (add some B-Ionic ever couple days to keep the calcium and alk where they need to be for the clam). No problems and the clam, RBTA and zos are doing great.
 
@kwl1763 wrote:
I'm seriously beginning to think water changes are the most misunderstood part of maintnenance. The nitrifying/denitrifying bacteria are on/in the substrate and rocks. Very little is in the water coulmn. You can do 90% water changes without issues. The thing you do have to do is match salinity said:
Good info, I thought it was a combo of water and rock :) I might as well do 75% change then :D
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My 60 cube is and has always been skimmerless. I do a 10 gallon water change once a month and do not have any problems. Even the sps frags I recieved at the swap are almost 25% bigger since they went in.
I do have a very small bio load and a large refuge with 3 types of Macro. I do not see the need to add a skimmer to my system unless I change something in the future.
 
Ok, I did 2 50% changes this weekend, tested the water.. Nitrates show up on the kit as 0 now. I thought I would need to do more changes. But looks like I am good to go now :D
 
I agree with Keith. The key to going skimmerless is water changes and plenty of other filtration(i.e. good live rock) IMO.

I have a 29G with a 20G fuge and a 10G sump and have probably 75lbs of LR between the display and fuge. The airpump on my skimmer finally gave out. Not wanting to spend more money on my existing setup when it could go into the new setup I didn't replace it. This has been going on probably 5 or 6 months now.

I've just kept up with my water changes and have seen no problems. I change out 15-20G every 2 weeks and things are happy. And I run a fairly heavy bioload. It's slightly more work to be without the skimmer in that you have to keep your schedule and shouldn't skip or delay maintenance but it's things you should be doing anyway.
 
I have a 7g minbow that is dominated by SPS and have been skimmerless since the tank's inception about 18 months ago. No big hitches related to the lack of a skimmer. I perform 30-70% weekly water changes depending on my interpretation of the tank's health. Been good for me so far, but I will have a skimmer on my next tank. A big, mean skimmer.
 
will skimmig affect the nitrate levels at all? the guy i bought my aquac urchin pro backed out on me and returned my $$, and it will be a bit before I can get another. I'm doing about 33% every other day battling my nitrates, should I go ahead and pop off a 50% or 75%? man this was alot easier when I lived on the beach in florida! Less expensive too :p
-donovan
 
Each 50% water change will cut your nitrates in half. And anything that is adding nitrates will bring them back up.

http://www.melevsreef.com/reducing_nitrates.html
 
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