It has been right at 2 1/2 years without a skimmer. I don't have very many fish, and no anemones are kept in this system any more. But there is more acropora coral. I am presently feeding 2 yellow tangs, and 2 clowns in this system, and adding a teaspoon of concentrated live phyto a couple times per week. I have had to treat the system for cyano a couple times a year with Chemiclean, but I think that is likely more a result of only changing 5 gallons of water each week than anything else. So the Chemiclean treatments prompt my big water changes for the year. I have not had any hair algae, although a little bryopsis has popped back up recently, so I am bringing magnesium levels up with Kent Tech M. I have been dosing Mag Flake twice a week. I have been cleaning the scrubber both sides about once every 3 weeks now, just rubbing fingers through it to get whatever will break free for removal, and rinsing in cold tap water. The bulbs do like to be changed every 3, or 4 months, which means I have quite a pile of curly bulbs stacking up. I have a sponge prefilter on the Mag 5 pump that likes to be cleaned every week. I still dose lime water every night, and add trace elements once per week. Three days after adding the trace elements, I run some carbon for 2, or 3 days. In the last 2 1/2 years I have removed a lot of live rock, a couple pieces at a time, replacing it with new dead rock - I have gone with a pegging system for my acros. This new dead rock did end up with some short, fuzzy algae for a time, but snails were employed to deal with this, and they did so nicely. There are some small "cryptic" areas in this system that may be contributing somewhat to the seeming health of this system. I was led to install a plenum under the deep sand bed when setting up this tank, and I wonder if that has also been a factor toward that end. Altogether, I am happy with how things are going. I wouldn't mind having a small skimmer somewhere in the system - I like gadgets! I don't think that i would run it all the time. I am leaning right now, though, toward adding a small space for growing chaeto in my frag tank. I can use the space in front of the wp-25 where the flow is just too much for any corals. But I may have to add a couple fish in order to keep the chaeto fed. I dont' need it for nutrient export, but just thinking it would add a place for pods to reproduce.
Thanks for looking!
