should I use a protein skimmer on 10G nano reef

[Chadf]

There are plenty of reefers with amazing tanks that don't do water changes. I personally do, but it is entirely possible to have a long lasting reef without them.

 

Don't forget we are talking about skimming, not water changes. Don't get it twisted....

 

 

They aren't related or anything.

[Subsea]

I do not skim nor water change. My 75G Jaubert Plenum with 30G mud/macro refugium has been set up for 12 years. I subscribe to the KISS principal. I lightly stock my tanks and use multiple nutrient pathways to produce complex food webs. For me, this simplistic method is compatible with my laissez faire attitude toward reef keeping.

 

With respect to foam fractionation, I do not find it necessary. The gunk that is pulled out by protein skimming is food for macro, invertebrae and corrals. In the systems that I operate, I focus on the water/air interface to drive carbon dioxide and oxygen. I use aroggonite DSB for alkalinity buffering and trace mineral addittion. Bacteria in sandbeds process nutrients and feed corals.

Patrick

[nidding]

I do not skim nor water change. My 75G Jaubert Plenum with 30G mud/macro refugium has been set up for 12 years. I subscribe to the KISS principal. I lightly stock my tanks and use multiple nutrient pathways to produce complex food webs. For me, this simplistic method is compatible with my laissez faire attitude toward reef keeping.

 

With respect to foam fractionation, I do not find it necessary. The gunk that is pulled out by protein skimming is food for macro, invertebrae and corrals. In the systems that I operate, I focus on the water/air interface to drive carbon dioxide and oxygen. I use aroggonite DSB for alkalinity buffering and trace mineral addittion. Bacteria in sandbeds process nutrients and feed corals.

Patrick

I really like this approach, as it seems to me, to be a very natural way to keep the reef with it's needs. However, in the context of the 10 gallon in question, wouldn't you need a rather big sump to keep this approach viable? (not an attack, by the way, just asking out of curiosity)

 

Also, I myself skim. It pulls out gunk from my system, so I would guess that it does something.

I do this because I've read 'things' online. Researches being one of them. Some of the researches says that skimming is useful, others that it does more harm than good. I guess it's like most other stuff in life; there are more than one approach to it, and more than one of them does actually yield great results.

However, I've been in this hobby FAR less than 7 years and have not done any proper research on my own, so the above should probably be disregarded

[Subsea]

I described my oldest tank set up. Like many things in life, there are many ways to keep healthy marine systems. Two years ago, after an encounter with Gerald Heslinger of IndoPacific SeaFarm, I started setting up lagoon biothemes. As a sponsor for another hobby forum, I maintained three 10G macro lagoons which we gave away to newbies into the hobby. These tanks were set up with 1" of coarse aroggonite for sandbed. No other biological filter. I have included macros into this lagoon biotheme. After 44 years of reefkeeping, it is the most simplistic, bulletproof system that I have maintained. I am maintaining two 55G and four 20G tanks using this model. I run high nutrient systems and control tanks using nitrate concentration between 10-20 ppm.

 

It has always been my goal to operate marine eco-systems with the least amount of effort and expense.

Patrick

[blasterman]

Good water change habits will handle all the export you need

 

Water change nazis like this are so effing bad for this industry it's unreal. Their response to every reef problem, including hemorrhoids and bald tires is do a water change.

 

Seriously - go back to mars and a CGI generated phallus. Commercial salt mixes are the biggest frikken variable you can imagine with no two bags mixing alike, and your solution is to keep doing it. Your tank water conditions are to be determined by a chemical salt mix made in china.

 

As said above, the best looking SPS tanks I've seen in the past decade we're from tanks where the owners can't recall the last water change. However, every damn one of them featured top end skimmers. I've seen chemical specto analysis done on skimmer effluent, and it can range from 10x tp 1000x the organic density of tank water depending on how good it is. That's good enough for me.

 

I have a 10gal SPS tank, and running a homemade juice bottle skimmer in my AC70 once a week results in immediate water clarity in less than 6 hours. This on a tank with *zero* fish.

[doppelganger]

@CHADF

You are so closed minded and immature it is making me a bit disgusted to be part of the same forum.

 

I am trying to help the OP, if you won't listen to me maybe you'll heed the advice of Chris Marks (The guy who named you TOTM and practically invented nano-reefing):

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/articles/_/beginners/natural-filtration-r3

 

That article was written in 2002... why don't we just use PC lamps while we're at it... Plus did they even make small skimmers then?

[kefitzat.haderech]

I change out 1 gallon a day on my 10 gallon. Call me crazy, but I find something oddly therapeutic about siphoning fish sh!t out of a glass box full of water.

[tetraodon]

ive relised after 10 years of fish keeping that there are many different ways of keeping fish/invert tanks, including reef tanks, when i did my research for doing my nano reef, i ran into stiff opposition everywhere i went, people who kept saltwater since the 70s said it was impossible to keep a reef in anything less than 50 gallons, i was also told that if i wanted to use an LED light it would cost 500 dollars, yet im sitting here with an evolve 4 filled with coral that are splitting and growing quickly with a 50 dollar LED light off amazon. my 2 cents is choose the route you want to go and research it. if you want a skimmer get one. like i said there are many different ways to do it, its also pointless to argue the "right" way, there are great success and great failures in all ways of doing it, so as long as the parameters are good and stable, and what ever is kept is doing well and healthy, and kept appropriately(i.e, keeping fish in tank sizes that cater to their needs, size, and activity level) i dont see why it matters how he does it, as long as its getting the job done. any way thats my opinion for whats its worth

[MrDo]

I have a cheap Lees skimmer that I never use on my 12 gal tank. I have 10 lbs of live rock in my tankb. There is not much in my tank right now but a few frags, craps and snails. I do water changes every few weeks but I test my tank once or twice a week. Once I see levels of Nitrates on the rise I know its time to do a 5 gal water change. Every 2-3 weeks or so. I also add B-Ionic once a week.

 

Thing about saltwater tanks is everyone has a diffrent way of doing things. So point being Your Mileage May Vary.

[dustyboy316]

So I know this is an old thread but I found it with a google search and figure I have something to add.

As most people said you don't NEED one. I have had my 10 gallon for over 2 years now. I do probably about 30% water change weekly and run two filters. One is a Marine Land Bio filter which I put an extra bag of carbon in. The other is some Wal Mart filter which his filled with Aquaclear 30 filter media. For water changes I have a siphon system which I collect any detritus at the bottom.

No matter what I do I cannot get rid of aiptasia, or hair algae. It didn't used to be a problem but it is now. I have 4 peppermint shrimp, but they don't eat the aiptasia. I have an emerald crab and a snail and that's my CUC.

I also have a clown and a royal Gramma. All these problems were before the peppermint shrimp. Everything is happy and healthy I just want to clean it up.

I bought an aquaclear nano protein skimmer and I am hoping it will make the difference. I will post after a month or two just to see if it made a difference. Other than that I think Chaeto may help, but I am out of ideas after this.

[Steve973]

I think that it will be difficult/impossible to eliminate aiptasia through nutrient control. You'll probably have to use a more direct method, like an aiptasia wand/zapper, boiling water, kalk paste, joe's juice, etc. I don't believe in using animals as a solution to a problem, but maybe you can borrow a berghia nudibranch from a nearby reef club member.

 

You can treat hair algae in any number of ways. Just remember that it is a symptom of something else. There are nutrients in your tank that the algae is feeding off of. What comes to mind is the fact that you have two fish in your tank. I'm sure it's manageable, but that is a constant source of nutrients. So, somehow, you have to make sure that nitrates and phosphates are taken care of. You mentioned that you put a bag of carbon in your filter. You could consider using Seachem Seagel that includes carbon and phosguard, which might help. Then there are a variety of other media that you can use, like Purigen. What are you using for test kits? I would recommend kits from Salifert or the Hanna colorimeter checkers.

 

And it was enteratining reading the bickering about using skimmers.

[jedimasterben]

I wonder how long people will keep arguing that it is the number of fish in your tank that determines bioload when it actually is only related to the amount of food you put in.

[vi3tboi7i4]

Skimmer shouldn't have to be expensive. I have a 3 gallon picotope and I run a diy skimmer from a soda bottle. It works wonderfully well and less than 15 dollars to make . I would never run any reef tank without a skimmer by that's just me.

[Mazzy21]

I have to agree with Aelvion. What's the point of buying a bunch of equipment you don't need just so you can tie yourself to more maintenance? Will it pull out gunk between WCs? Sure, that's it's whole job. Will it be worth the money AND the extra time you have to take to tend to it and clean it and keep it dialed in constantly while fighting a losing battle against evaporation? Absolutely not. Absolutely - not. I've had low end skimmers and high end skimmers and they are all the same - a complete pain in the butt!! No one has built a skimmer that is easy to tear down and clean, nor has anyone managed to build a skimmer that doesn't have a single 'issue' to contend with. Not one. I currently run an Aquamaxx - salt creep clogs the air line. I previously had a Cadlights - constantly have to redial it in, like daily, even with a top off. I've had a Euroreef when Euroreef was still Euroreef - huge and cumbersome to take apart and seals leaked over time and had to be resealed often. There is no perfect skimmer and for the headache that they are on such a little tank I truly see no point. Many times while I'm fighting to get my Aquamaxx detached from the tank and lugging it to the kitchen sink I wonder just how beneficial it is even on my 29g, and most of the time I come back with 'not very, but you own it now so you might as well use it'.

eta: PS - I had that Aquamaxx off my tank for 3 months just due to being sick of dealing with it. I just put it back on a week ago. With a 29g tank that I heavily feed, it pulled out gunk for exactly one week. I emptied the collection cup and it hasn't pulled anything since. So how much do I need it on my tank?? I'd say not much. And I'm even lazy about WCs!

[rjp83]

I am skimming a 3.7g nano but I am also a little overstocked a filtration nut. If you can afford it, and dont mind maintenance, then IMO i would skim it. I have gotten by without it but I find parmeters to stay a little more in check when I skim, and its also added piece of mind

[gus6464]

Eventually everyone gets lazy with tank maintenance so the more fail-safes you have the better. Water changes suck.

[ps2cho]

The only benefit of having a PS in a 10gal tank is getting extra oxygen in the water. Problem solved by pointing your pump near the surface.

 

I vote no as doing 25% water changes weekly (2.5gal) would be far, far easier and more effective.

[Nixperience]

I say yes to skimmer. Anything you can do to help stabilize parameters is good. The smaller the water volume, the quicker the fluctuations, so protein skimmer will definitely allow a little room for error. Another underestimated piece of equipment for a small tank is a controller. I used to have temperature swings of a degree throughout a day, but I recently got a reefkeeper lite and now my temperature is 79 always. Never any swings at all. I'm doing a tank transfer this weekend to an 11 gallon and adding a tunze 9001 skimmer. I expect good things.