skimmerless and oxygen levels ich?

[smallreef]

Hey I have a small 29 gallon eclipse hood/ skimmerless reef tank setup for around 6 months now...The tank is attached to a 7 gallon refugium above the tank which is loaded with different kinds of macros...I recently lost all my fish due to a nasty nasty ich outbreak. The corals look great as they always have and I still do a three 1/2 gallon water change a week. Recently I have been looking at the possibility that without a skimmer there is not enough gas exchange going on in my tank. I have two powerheads running along with a third power head bringing water up to the refugium.

 

Heres my question....

1) If i put a large airstone in the refugium will this add oxygen to the water coming down from the refugium into the display tank?

 

2) Has anyone ever had problems with oxygen levels because of going skimmerless and this maybe putting more stress on fish causing ich outbreak to get worse and worse. All water parameters are great and always have been

 

3) Any opinions on how long to wait before trying with fish again? some people say ich is always in the tank no matter how long you wait

[Physh1]

Surface agitation is key in skimmerless tanks. All my tanks are skimmerless and I use a combonation of surface skimmers feeding to my aquaclear filter and a small powerhead agitating the surface to keep gas exchage and o2 levels good.

 

I'd wait at least 2 weeks before I add more fish. You want to get the tank back into shape and work out the air situation. Ich is always in the tank but when stress occurs it can create the ich spots which are hundreds of individual parasites in a small "colony".

 

Cameron

[apophis924]

I concur with Physh on that. I am skimmerless and i use one pwer head angled at the surfgace and an aqua clear 150 with carbon. The water fall efgfect of the aquaclear breaks up surface films and the pwer head keeps the surface in motion to impove gas exchange. My fuge has loads of macros that is lit 24/7 adding more O2 into the system. Thus far i have not seen problems related to poor O2 levels.