As little equipment as possible?

[puffcrusader696]

lol i think we will just have to agree to disagree on this part of the thread!!!

You need to understand that different things work for different people! Skimmers hindering a reef tank??? Hardly!!! Saying skimmers are crap??? Maybe if you are talking cheaply made skimmers without modification or airstone skimmers!

On another topic,, how often do you water change??

explain how a skimmer benefits a reef more than it hinders. many people say this, and quite frankly, i think its a load of crap! from what ive seen skimmers take out all the nutrients that corals and coraline need to flourish and dont take out much else... if you got enough bio in a filter or enough live rock you dont need a skimmer at all and all it would be doing is taking food you put in your tank right out before the corals have a chance to eat it! i was like when i saw how much my coral growth increased when i removed my skimmer! i noticed an increase in a week! thats insanely fast!

 

[BIGgourami]

in both my 29 and 75 i have a skimmer (actually i have two in the 75) corals are doing fine and the coralline is actually becoming a nuisance

taking crap out before it decomposses, either through skimming or rigorous cleaning, is better than letting it turn into nitrates

 

[ghostcichlid]

explain how a skimmer benefits a reef more than it hinders. many people say this, and quite frankly, i think its a load of crap! from what ive seen skimmers take out all the nutrients that corals and coraline need to flourish and dont take out much else... if you got enough bio in a filter or enough live rock you dont need a skimmer at all and all it would be doing is taking food you put in your tank right out before the corals have a chance to eat it! i was like when i saw how much my coral growth increased when i removed my skimmer! i noticed an increase in a week! thats insanely fast!

I may make some people mad by doing this but I can no long read this thread and just keep quiet! puffcrusader696 I just looked at all your video clips on you tube of thes "great tanks" you keep talking about and quite frankly, to me it looks like all your corals are dead or dieing! I will be the fist to tell you I dont know much about the salt side of the hobby as I am new to it but I have seen many many tanks a hell of alot nicer that yours with skimmers ! Now I am not new to the hobby all together, I have been on the fresh side since I was 8 and im 26 now so I do have quite a bit of experience under my belt and I have always been a firm beliver in heavy filtration and heavy water changes! I dont know where you are coming from putting down skimmers so bad and saying they are crap, mabey the skimmer you bought was a cheap piece of crap, but hey you get what you pay for and I dont know where you have seen such great growth in your corals, because to me they look dead! I for one WILL have a skimmer on all of my salt tanks, no if, ands, or buts about it! Furthermore I think you need to reconsider starting your skimmer up again and try and save your dieing corals!

 

[ghostcichlid]

taking crap out before it decomposses, either through skimming or rigorous cleaning, is better than letting it turn into nitrates

I could not agree more BIG!

 

[Ricko]

I may make some people mad by doing this but I can no long read this thread and just keep quiet! puffcrusader696 I just looked at all your video clips on you tube of thes "great tanks" you keep talking about and quite frankly, to me it looks like all your corals are dead or dieing! I will be the fist to tell you I dont know much about the salt side of the hobby as I am new to it but I have seen many many tanks a hell of alot nicer that yours with skimmers ! Now I am not new to the hobby all together, I have been on the fresh side since I was 8 and im 26 now so I do have quite a bit of experience under my belt and I have always been a firm beliver in heavy filtration and heavy water changes! I dont know where you are coming from putting down skimmers so bad and saying they are crap, mabey the skimmer you bought was a cheap piece of crap, but hey you get what you pay for and I dont know where you have seen such great growth in your corals, because to me they look dead! I for one WILL have a skimmer on all of my salt tanks, no if, ands, or buts about it! Furthermore I think you need to reconsider starting your skimmer up again and try and save your dieing corals!

I've had this on my mind and am glad i wasn't the one who said it!!!!

Going back to my first post on this thread i said i kept a holding tank for numerous mths with only live rock, so ofcourse no equip (sort of) is needed. As BigG said with skimmers, try smelling that crap that comes out, i personally don't want that foul smelling brown muck in my tank. Also my purple and green Acro's are spreading like a rash so i can only assume the skimmer is not hindering their healthiness (plus i havn't done a water change since Oct 08 so new salt mix isn't the cause for their growth either).

Again as i said before, different things work for different people, but telling people something is crap when you don't know,,,wrong!!

 

[puffcrusader696]

I may make some people mad by doing this but I can no long read this thread and just keep quiet! puffcrusader696 I just looked at all your video clips on you tube of thes "great tanks" you keep talking about and quite frankly, to me it looks like all your corals are dead or dieing! I will be the fist to tell you I dont know much about the salt side of the hobby as I am new to it but I have seen many many tanks a hell of alot nicer that yours with skimmers ! Now I am not new to the hobby all together, I have been on the fresh side since I was 8 and im 26 now so I do have quite a bit of experience under my belt and I have always been a firm beliver in heavy filtration and heavy water changes! I dont know where you are coming from putting down skimmers so bad and saying they are crap, mabey the skimmer you bought was a cheap piece of crap, but hey you get what you pay for and I dont know where you have seen such great growth in your corals, because to me they look dead! I for one WILL have a skimmer on all of my salt tanks, no if, ands, or buts about it! Furthermore I think you need to reconsider starting your skimmer up again and try and save your dieing corals!

first of all... all my videos are at least two months old (i think) and were before i disconnected them. 2nd of all... none of my corals ever were dying... none of them have ever died or shown signs of it (except for one sps i ordered online that way dying before it got to me) and my tanks were (and still are) pretty new (less than a year) with little chance for growth at the time of the videos... im not totalling saying all skimmers are crap im just saying there are better solutions to them than skimmers... yes i run a skimmer on my 20 long nano-reef but my 55 i do not and have seen a big difference. algae scrubbers do all the work skimmers do without the drawbacks suck as sucking the nutrients out and they can be the only filter you have on a reef tank with better results than any other type of filter with a skimmer. on fresh and salt. im not saying all skimmers are bad for your tanks im just saying there are much better solutions

 

[BIGgourami]

also unless you're dosing something like an amino acid suppliment or possibly trying to dissolve a chemical (sodium thiosulfate, solid meds, etc) the skimmer wont really touch it

it's not going to remove precipitates like calcium or magnesium, just organics

 

[ghostcichlid]

First Of All....... All of your clips except 1 are only 1 month old! Second Of All..... If all of your tanks are less than a year old how could you even tell this huge difference you keep talking about, between when you had the skimmer and when you took it off???????????? Furthermore PLEASE show us pics of your algea scrubber and is it a solid or a pivot and the plans you used to build it, because for the life of me I can only find DIY plans and a complete algea scrubber system for sale seems to be nonexistent! PLEASE SHARE ALL OF YOUR SECRETS WITH US ALL puffcrusader696!!!!!!!!!!

ALSO Hundreds Of Thousands of people trust in and rely on Protein Skimmers! I think it may be time for you to upgrade!

Originally Posted by: puffcrusader696
i was like when i saw how much my coral growth increased when i removed my skimmer!

And this was Originally posted by: GHOSTCICHLID!!!!!!! I was like when I read your misled post and looked at your dieing corals! FACE!

END OF DISCUSSION!!!!!!!

 

[BIGgourami]

EVERYBODY

 

[puffcrusader696]

youtube says alot of things are one month old... alot of my old vids are still "one month old" its not a huge increase, its just i can notice them out alot more and some have grown since i took out my skimmer. the phytoplankton and stuff you feed corals is organics... thats what skimmers take out.