Do I need a protein skimmer?

[Dave MN Nano]

My first saltwater tank - 20gallon tall. About 5 months old. Fish doing great. 2 Oscellarus clowns, 1 cardinal, 1 firefish goby. Added first coral - pom pom xenia. Added hob refugium with chaeto. Ammonia, nitrites and nitrates all 0. Phosphates almost 0. I do not need to do a water change every week to keep water quality. Everyone seems to have a protein skimmer. Do I need one? Why???

[ajmckay]

No a skimmer isn't necessary. 

 

A skimmer removes dissolved organic waste from the tank.  Just like a mechanical filter they're not really needed in a system with enough live rock and flow.  That being said some people like to add them.  I personally like skimmers because they remove small bits of leftover food and things before they have the chance to break down and add nutrients to the tank.  Also it sort of feels nice to empty the skimmer cup and say "oh cool, look at all the crap it pulled out today".  

 

I feel that skimmers aren't generally as effective in small systems 20g and under because the current designs are hard to adjust properly and the ability of small pumps to create a lot of micro-bubbles is not as good as larger pumps.  Also I think it's possible to over-skim.  

 

So if your system is doing fine without a skimmer there's no doubt it should continue doing fine, all else equal.  

 

 

[mcarroll]

On 2/12/2021 at 1:10 PM, Dave MN Nano said:

My first saltwater tank - 20gallon tall.

Congrats and welcome to the hobby!  🙂

 

What books did you read before getting started?

 

On 2/12/2021 at 1:10 PM, Dave MN Nano said:

Fish doing great. 2 Oscellarus clowns, 1 cardinal, 1 firefish goby.

That's very packed for such a small tank.  And 5 months in is still very new.  For a newbie that's a tall order....you could be taking it easier on yourself.  😉

 

Don't add anymore fish.

 

On 2/12/2021 at 1:10 PM, Dave MN Nano said:

Added first coral - pom pom xenia.

Hopefully you read up on it.

 

On 2/12/2021 at 1:10 PM, Dave MN Nano said:

Added hob refugium with chaeto.

Reason?

 

On 2/12/2021 at 1:10 PM, Dave MN Nano said:

Ammonia, nitrites and nitrates all 0. Phosphates almost 0.

Ammonia and nitrites should be at 0 thanks to the fully functional nitrogen cycle.

 

However for nitrates and phosphates to be zero means that nothing that needs dissolved nutrients will be able to grow.

 

Not good in a new reef tank.

 

Corals, algae and everything that depends on coral or algae (which in total...that's everything everything) will be affected by this.

 

Phosphates in particular should be ≥0.03 ppm as an absolute minimum....≥ 0.10 ppm would be a much safer level.   You will not have "too much".

 

On 2/12/2021 at 1:10 PM, Dave MN Nano said:

Everyone seems to have a protein skimmer. Do I need one? Why???

Don't worry so much about what everyone else is doing....in this hobby (as in life) that can get you into trouble.

 

Nobody in this hobby "needs" any of the gear on their tank.   Each piece of gear on a tank does serve a purpose though.

 

So to answer the question...

 

Most aquarium info on Wikipedia is just bad or is marketing crap.  But the page on protein skimmers isn't bad:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_skimmer

 

In a nutshell, a protein skimmer provides excellent aeration (an often overlooked primary feature) and light filtration while requiring very little from the reefkeeper.  It is incapable of removing dissolved nitrates or phosphates. 

 

Practically perfect for reefing.

 

I would personally replace your refugium (heavy duty filtration that you also don't need) with a protein skimmer.

[Dave MN Nano]

Thanks much for all the comments!!!

 

I did not read a reefing book. I learned what I know from videos. BRTV and Mrsaltwater mostly.

 

I added the chaeto refugium because my nitrates were about 40 or 50. It only took a week or two of chaeto to knock that down to 0. My phosphates are 0.25. I have Zoanths and leather and other soft corals. Is there a chance my water is too clean for some of those??? The phosphates should be ok but do I need some nitrates?? I have had my coral in for about 3 weeks. It is growing very slowly. I don't know how long it should take??? I see a few tiny new polyps on my zoanths and one or two polyps of my candy cane are dividing.

[aclman88]

Your coral definitely need nitrates. If nutrients bottom out you risk your coral suffering and also open yourself up to things like cyano or Dinos.

 

you also don’t need a protein skimmer and with zero phosphate and nitrates you probably don’t want one. My tank runs fine with no skimmer and has for over a year. Just slow down a bit and let your tank stabilize and mature. 

[mcarroll]

43 minutes ago, Dave MN Nano said:

I did not read a reefing book. I learned what I know from videos. BRTV and Mrsaltwater mostly.

I wouldn't suggest that anyone reef solely based on online information....least of all videos.  Generally speaking the info in vids is all over the place from good info, to dis-info.  

 

Even if none of the bad ideas were promoted in vids that routinely are, there are all kinds of basics – essential knowledge – that will just never be covered in videos but which you should have in your mental knowledgebase.

 

Reading a good book or three will give you the baseline of knowledge you need for maximum success – in reefing, and it consuming reefing information.

 

For example, you can't read a good reefing book without learning what a skimmer is, what it does, and why you'd want one.

 

Unless you're opposed, I'd suggest starting with Moe's "Marine Aquarium Handbook: From Beginner to Breeder" (it's a classic, so you should be able to find it used, as well as on eBook, etc) and moving on from there to other suggestions in this thread:

 

[Dave MN Nano]

And that is really my question. My nitrates were to high. I added a chaeto refugium and they went to 0. Why would I pull it out and replace with a skimmer??? What am I missing?

[mcarroll]

41 minutes ago, Dave MN Nano said:

And that is really my question. My nitrates were to high.

They were zero wen the thread was opened.

 

I would have to ask what "too high" was, and how did they get to that level?  

 

Also, what were phosphate levels at the time?  

 

In terms of coral, high nitrates are only a problem when there is a simultaneous lack of phosphates.

 

41 minutes ago, Dave MN Nano said:

I added a chaeto refugium and they went to 0. Why would I pull it out and replace with a skimmer??? What am I missing?

If that's just what you want to do because that's what you want to do, then you may not be missing anything.  Folks do get that combo to work.  (And I did try to answer this before.)

 

But to attempt a better answer to the question based on some recent reading (last night)...  

 

Algae aren't really filters – they don't just soak up nutrients and wait to get thrown away.

 

They are algae.  They live and selfishly influence the ecosystem around them – very much like corals do.  

 

To put the issues in a nutshell, algae leak.  As a result, among other effects, they mess with O2 levels and pH.  Their leakage can be very comprehensive and is heavy on organic carbon – sometimes approaching half of the carbon they can fix via photosynthesis – which is a lot!

 

This nutrient leakage can cause issues like you are seeing – ie eutrophication from bacterial growth spikes driving dissolved nutrients levels, and sometimes oxygen levels, ultra-low.  

 

pH swings and O2 dips that algae cause in the process aren't helpful, and in a new tank they can cause very real problems – high pH correlates with higher percentages of free ammonia in the water.

 

Algae filters are probably more popular than they should be.

 

A skimmer on the other hand, operates very differently from an algae filter....or indeed from any other common type of filter.  

 

A skimmer provides mostly the same "benefits" to a reef as waves on a beach.  A lot of air mixing and aeration. 

 

But it also removes the same kind of "nasty foam" you see on a beach...

 

(I guess loosely composed of surfactants, per Spotte) – but not much else.  

 

A small amount of particulate matter can be captured in the bubble stream of a protein skimmer, but not much food is ever caught.  

 

And dissolved nutrients like nitrates and phosphates cannot be removed by a skimmer.

 

Check out:

• Spotte, Captive Seawater Fishes, p.78.  
• The Wikipedia entry on Sea foam is useful.  
• Also, reefs.com should also have the old advancedaquarist.com articles on skimmate analysis.

 

 

[Dave MN Nano]

Thanks much!

[Dave MN Nano]

18 hours ago, mcarroll said:

 

This nutrient leakage can cause issues like you are seeing – ie eutrophication from bacterial growth spikes driving dissolved nutrients levels, and sometimes oxygen levels, ultra-low.  

 

 

I don't know that I am seeing any issues by the way!

 

Fish and coral look happy

Ammonia = 0

Nitrites = 0

Nitrates = 0.25ppm

Calcium = 400

DKH = 12

Coraline algae growing and other algaes or diatoms not significant

 

Never measured my pH but I will check that too.

 

But I will, of course, keep an eye out for these symptoms.

 

[Simulated Fish]

1 hour ago, Dave MN Nano said:

I don't know that I am seeing any issues by the way!

 

Fish and coral look happy

Ammonia = 0

Nitrites = 0

Nitrates = 0.25ppm

Calcium = 400

DKH = 12

Coraline algae growing and other algaes or diatoms not significant

 

Never measured my pH but I will check that too.

 

But I will, of course, keep an eye out for these symptoms.

 

 

sounds like there is no reason to waste money on another reefing toy 😛 if anything i would look into dosing micro nutrients.

[mcarroll]

3 hours ago, Dave MN Nano said:

I don't know that I am seeing any issues by the way!

 

Fish and coral look happy

Ammonia = 0

Nitrites = 0

Nitrates = 0.25ppm

Calcium = 400

DKH = 12

Coraline algae growing and other algaes or diatoms not significant

 

Never measured my pH but I will check that too.

 

But I will, of course, keep an eye out for these symptoms.

 

You asked in the title if you need a protein skimmer.  

 

You've now got a pretty good run down of why you would want one now and you know the issues they work on and how.  

 

To me at least, it seems like you also know why your nutrient levels are so low and at least a small idea of what might happen if they stay that way.

 

Good luck!