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Skimmer vs no skimmer? I think that I found the answer


reefernanoman

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reefernanoman

So I went on vacation for two weeks, and during that time, tank maintenance was non existent on both of my tanks(28G nanocube and fusion 10G). My fish keeper only fed very little every three days and nothing else was done. The 28G has a pair of Maroon Clowns and the 10G has a YWMG, two pistol shrimp and a small B/W clownfish. Now the 10G has a ghost skimmer and the 28G has no skimmer. Well the 10G had almost no algae and the 28G had lots of it! So next time someone asks if they need a skimmer, I'm going to say yes!

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I agree. It's not that you absolutely have to have one, but when I added my skimmer I found it made things more stable and gave me a lot more leeway in dealing with the tank.

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Yea same over here. I live by the skimmer. Once you smell a cup of skimmate or see it, you think twice about skimmer or no skimmer, that why I will be running one on my pico.

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If it was me and I had a sump with a nice and big refugium in it I probably wouldn't bother with a skimmer. Never ran one on my 90. But on a nano I believe they are a very necessary piece of equipment. Even if you have a fuge in the back of a AIO, I don't think you get super long contact time. But I guess that really depends on you return pump.

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I heard the opposite. I heard that in a nano the efficiency of a protein skimmer goes down vs a protein skimmer on a larger system.

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I heard the opposite. I heard that in a nano the efficiency of a protein skimmer goes down vs a protein skimmer on a larger system.

Well I guess that's probably true but in my setup I need at the filtration I can get since I don't have a place for a refugium. My 9001 only pulls dark tea like skimmate. I'd much rather have a large refugium vs a skimmer if I had to pick between the two though.

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Every tank is different. I had pretty nice sump less and skimmer less breeder setup that ran just as good as my current setup with oversized skimmer. Many ways to get job done.

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If I had to pick between the I would pick a skimmer with heavy water changes but every tank is different and something that works for you may not work for someone else.

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I think the issue with comparing systems with refugiums and systems with skimmers is how the refugium is set up. On smaller systems and AIO tanks there is only a tiny little refugium and frankly, I don't see them being that effective. If you go with a larger tank then you are usually going to have a sump with much more room where you can have an appropriately sized refugium with a quality light for it. When it comes to skimmers, there are a lot of quality options that don't take up much room and that are well sized for the tank.

 

And I agree about the smell of a skimmer cup. Mine isn't even thick black stuff but rather a dark tea color but it definitely has a funky smell to it. I can't really place it since idk of anything remotely like it.

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That's why I love this,so many different ways to run a system.A nano system really doesn't have enough organics like a bigger system.Thats why most of the time,it's tea like color,but the smell tells it all . I'm a skimmer guy

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reefernanoman

I have intentions of getting one but my bio load is nil. Water changes works perfectly.

Yes they do work perfectly (water changes), but I was gone for two weeks, so the skimmer (in my eyes) kept my tank pretty clean compared to my other skimerles tank(it had hair algae going crazy).

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I like to simply do both: water changes and run a skimmer. I have a pretty low bioload so my SCA-301 does great for me. The only time I get algae is when I wait too long to change out my GFO.

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