Riddle me this....

[Reefnectar]

Gonna give some preface first...here’s the deal...

 

For the longest time my no3 ran around 15-25ppm. Weekly 20% wc, regular replacement of carbon/purigen/floss, and decent skimming. I also run marine pure balls for extra bio. Not an issue, everything was thriving. Minimal algae. Seeing as skimmer choices for IM tanks are lacking, i have tried two separate skimmers, both unhappy with them. I have since removed my skimmer and added a fuge for nutrient export while i wait for the Nuvoskim DC skimmers to be back in stock

 

Here’s the mystery. After removing my skimmer, and while i was at the time without a fuge, my nitrates DROPPED to 5ppm. I feed rather heavily and you’d think that removing a main source of nutrient export would have caused my no3 to rise. 

 

I have since increased fish and coral feedings, upped my dosing of aminos and incorporated a chaeto fuge for redundancy and biodiversity. My no3 is now holding steady at 2-5ppm. Again, not an issue, my tank is thriving.

 

my question is

 

1. Why did my nitrates dramatically drop after going skimmerless?

 

i know smimmers aren’t necessary in nanos if water changes can take its place, but i would like the added aeration for ph increase because i plan on adding acropora soon

 

2. Will adding a skimmer help or hurt? And how can i keep my no3 a bit elevated after the fact without overfeeding so much that im creating a space for vermited snails and spaghetti worms to run rampant?

 

sorry for the novel, release your collective knowledge!!!

[MrObscura]

Why'd you change things up in the first place?

 

But I will say if you're tank is thriving as is I wouldn't change anything. 

 

I'd leave a skimmer out of it since I'd worry about stripping things too low. Though you could toy with running a skimmer instead of a fuge, since I feel a fuge is better as a second line of defense in addition to a skimmer if need be. Though probably not necessary unless your trying to get away from water changes. 

[Reefnectar]

1 hour ago, MrObscura said:

Why'd you change things up in the first place?

 

But I will say if you're tank is thriving as is I wouldn't change anything. 

 

I'd leave a skimmer out of it since I'd worry about stripping things too low. Though you could toy with running a skimmer instead of a fuge, since I feel a fuge is better as a second line of defense in addition to a skimmer if need be. Though probably not necessary unless your trying to get away from water changes. 

I should have mentioned that my motive behind this is to slowly move away from frequent water changes, keep my hands out of the tank, replenishing majors with dosing and minors with infrequent small WC, relying on fuge and skimming for nutrient export (as well as raising and sustaining ph)

 

 

[MrObscura]

Personally, I'd advise against that. I think weekly 10-20% water changes are the best thing for a tank. 

 

Sure, people pull off the no water change thing but it's also often a key in many a tank crash since such tanks are living precariously on the edge and the littlest thing can tip them over. 

 

But that's just my 2 cents. 

[DreC80]

No clue why your nitrates would drop.  I'll preface this with there are many ways to be successful in this hobby.  For me, I always use a skimmer.  I dry skim when stripping nutrients is a concern.  I believe the skimmer helps with oxygination and ph.  My wife has an 18 gallon tank and we tried it with no skimmer and a sandbed.  We were not diligent about cleaning the sandbed and after a while the zoas and lps corals started closing up and looking really bad.  We transferred everything to my tank until we could figure things out.  Added a nuvoskim and removed the sand and within hours the corals started looking better.  I think for her tank, the addition of a skimmer really helped....not sure if it was ph related or what.

[Reefnectar]

1 hour ago, MrObscura said:

Personally, I'd advise against that. I think weekly 10-20% water changes are the best thing for a tank. 

 

Sure, people pull off the no water change thing but it's also often a key in many a tank crash since such tanks are living precariously on the edge and the littlest thing can tip them over. 

 

But that's just my 2 cents. 

This is true! Especially in systems that are newer. But as long as the biological foundation is well established, good nutrient import/export balance is maintained, large coral bio mass, major trace elements are kept stable via dosing or what have you, and minors are replenished in the same way and via infrequent water changes, water changes essentially just become a means of unnecessary instability. Aside from removing polutants  or “resetting” parameters they lose their purpose. And im hoping neither of those will be needed, but smaller frequency/volume wc as a redundancy regardless. My goal is not to quit doing water changes all together, but slowly and incrementally reducing from my current 20% weekly to maybe the same amount monthly and eventually even less. 

 

Consistent turnover of sandbed and hitting the rocks with a turkey baster also helps towards reducing the chance of a crash. This has at least been my experience and I wouldn’t recommend this to tanks under a year old, unless you are going triton right off the bat which is a whole other ball game. Im just perplexed as to why my nitrates behaved opposite the manner expected  

[MrObscura]

A water change shouldnt introduce any instability. If it is either your tank isn't stable and/or your mix water doesn't match tank parameters. 

 

Now, I will say, after personal experience, that too many and/or too large of water changes can result in too clean of a tank. Small frequent ones are the key imo. 

 

But do whatever you feel is best for your tank. 

[Reefnectar]

5 minutes ago, MrObscura said:

A water change shouldnt introduce any instability. If it is either your tank isn't stable and/or your mix water doesn't match tank parameters. 

 

Now, I will say, after personal experience, that too many and/or too large of water changes can result in too clean of a tank. Small frequent ones are the key imo. 

 

But do whatever you feel is best for your tank. 

im currently using RSCP salt and im researching salt mixes with levels closer to where i am trying to keep my tank at for that exact reason. The RSCP is just so high in cal and alk. Deciding between neomarine, tropic marin coral pro or fritz. 

 

I guess im just trying to pinpoint the balance in this tank, but the unexpected drop in nitrates is making it into a headache 😂 

 

besides, i like my sandbed as white as possible so I don’t think ill be capable of not vacuuming weekly lol

[Clown79]

Every system is different. What works for one may not for another.

 

My tanks have been better since doing either small weekly waterchange(10%) to doing 15% every 2 weeks. 

 

I was doing 15-20% a week, my nutrients was too low. 0-2. 

 

I run no skimmer or fuge but have red gracilaria in every dt.

 

 

 

[MrObscura]

While every system is different, I do feel there are some staples that benefit every tank. And water changes are one of those imo. Of course too big of a wc can drop nutrients too low, so volume can vary. I'll propably start doing just 10% a week or so because of that very issue. 

 

And yea, rscp has high Alk, I switched from rscp to blue bucket. 

[Tamberav]

Do you know your phosphate? If you were stripping PO4 too low, that can inhibit Nitrate uptake by the organisms growing in your tank. Perhaps removing the skimmer increased PO4 which allowed stuff to utilize it which also utilizes Nitrate along with it. 

[Reefnectar]

12 hours ago, Tamberav said:

Do you know your phosphate? If you were stripping PO4 too low, that can inhibit Nitrate uptake by the organisms growing in your tank. Perhaps removing the skimmer increased PO4 which allowed stuff to utilize it which also utilizes Nitrate along with it. 

Po4 was and has been around .01-.03 last few times I've checked. But that is a very good point as well although hard to verify until i get the new skimmer up and running  

[Rabb.D]

hello i find it strange that one would say that skimmers are not necessary in a small tank, when small tanks require so much more chemistry adjustment and bandwidth problems from ratio to ratio and tee to tea measurements more so than large tanks above the 50 gallon threshold, its surprising because the fault range is so much more acute that it would require a much bigger skimmer than large scale tanks just to maintain the tea to tee mearsurements, problem is when your dioxide nitrates is relieved of its proper residential equipecable factor meaning its mains source of taxation and removal plus that of its renewable fixture it just transforms from dionide nitrates which is (inert nitrate metal) back to dioxide nitrate and seeps back into the tank as consumbable and renewable nitrate...

 

basically this means that the nitrate just converts itself from intert nitrate to soluble nitrate so don't remove the skimmer plz

 

sincerely frokly, rab

[Snow_Phoenix]

30 minutes ago, Rabb.D said:

hello i find it strange that one would say that skimmers are not necessary in a small tank, when small tanks require so much more chemistry adjustment and bandwidth problems from ratio to ratio and tee to tea measurements more so than large tanks above the 50 gallon threshold, its surprising because the fault range is so much more acute that it would require a much bigger skimmer than large scale tanks just to maintain the tea to tee mearsurements, problem is when your dioxide nitrates is relieved of its proper residential equipecable factor meaning its mains source of taxation and removal plus that of its renewable fixture it just transforms from dionide nitrates which is (inert nitrate metal) back to dioxide nitrate and seeps back into the tank as consumbable and renewable nitrate...

 

basically this means that the nitrate just converts itself from intert nitrate to soluble nitrate so don't remove the skimmer plz

 

sincerely frokly, rab

Actually rab, it is entirely possible to run a skimmerless system successfully. You should dig through TOTM threads on the site. We have several members with beautiful tanks running without skimmers. 

[Thrassian Atoll]

Out of curiosity, have you tried the Tunze 9001 skimmer?

[Reefnectar]

On 3/3/2019 at 6:04 AM, TILTON said:

Out of curiosity, have you tried the Tunze 9001 skimmer?

It was my first choice, but does not fit back chambers of the IM Lagoon 25 without some customization/adjustments i am not willing to make. Essentially the skimmers that work best don’t fit and the ones that fit have so-so effectiveness. The nuvoskim is an improvement on the first model, and I haven’t heard any complaints yet. Will be giving that skimmer a try soon

[Thrassian Atoll]

9 hours ago, Reefnectar said:

It was my first choice, but does not fit back chambers of the IM Lagoon 25 without some customization/adjustments i am not willing to make. Essentially the skimmers that work best don’t fit and the ones that fit have so-so effectiveness. The nuvoskim is an improvement on the first model, and I haven’t heard any complaints yet. Will be giving that skimmer a try soon

I run it in mine.  It works pretty well.  I just replaced the single stock pump with the Y for 2 eheim 600s.

 

 

[Clown79]

On 3/3/2019 at 3:48 AM, Rabb.D said:

hello i find it strange that one would say that skimmers are not necessary in a small tank, when small tanks require so much more chemistry adjustment and bandwidth problems from ratio to ratio and tee to tea measurements more so than large tanks above the 50 gallon threshold, its surprising because the fault range is so much more acute that it would require a much bigger skimmer than large scale tanks just to maintain the tea to tee mearsurements, problem is when your dioxide nitrates is relieved of its proper residential equipecable factor meaning its mains source of taxation and removal plus that of its renewable fixture it just transforms from dionide nitrates which is (inert nitrate metal) back to dioxide nitrate and seeps back into the tank as consumbable and renewable nitrate...

 

basically this means that the nitrate just converts itself from intert nitrate to soluble nitrate so don't remove the skimmer plz

 

sincerely frokly, rab

I have 3 nano's and I had a pico. 

 

If I ran a skimmer on any of them, I'd have 0 nutrients which then I would have to dose nutrients or over feed just to provide the right conditions.

 

Many hobbyests have had to shut off their skimmers for the same reason- stripping the tank.

 

Some systems need it and many don't.

 

Lots of documentation online regarding how skimmers on nano's often leads to removing too much leading to a different set of issues.

 

Large systems often need skimmers because they house larger fish, more fish, which means more food being eaten and more waste.

[flypenfly]

Your bacterial population might have finally gotten established and consumed your nitrates.

 

Also, you might have been skimming a strain of bacteria that was soaking up your nitrates. Or your skimming oxygenated the water to conditions that weren't conducive for a certain strain of bacteria that soaks up nitrates.

 

I would continue to skim because it keeps the tank better oxygenated and it's filtration you can count on. In aquariums, especially small tanks, bacterial populations can swing wildly and if you can't keep your filtration consistent that will be a swingy tank.

 

I wouldn't obsess over nitrates under 100. 

[Reefnectar]

Update: been running a refugium with some chaeto during the night for a few weeks now. Still no skimmer, undecided if its needed as of now.

 

With copious amounts of nutrient import (lots of fish food, 6 fish in a 25g, target feeding corals 2x weekly, dosing aminos x2 weekly etc) I’ve been keeping my no3 between 1-2.5ppm and my po4 between .01-.03. My ph was also around 8.1-8.2 last i checked which is surprising without a skimmer. As it stands, my tank is thriving under this routine, even got a couple acros (ASD Sunset Mille and WD Tenuis) and their polyp extension is insane. Going to continue as i am and will tweak when necessary 🙂