Is a Skimmer Needed?

[BCReefer]

I am new to a Marine Aquarium but I have had a fresh water aquarium for 3 years. I have a simple question. A skimmer is used to take out all toxins from the water, correct? If so, if I do a 10% water change per week, will I still require a skimmer? I have a 27 G tank for now, since I live in a condo.

 

[2poor2reef]

Skimmers will not remove all toxins from the water. But good ones will remove a lot of dissolved organics and probably some plankton and other things that you might not want removed. How quickly your water column becomes polluted depends on how effective your other filtration is such as live rock, live sand, and algaes. Also, it depends on how large your bio-load is or at least how well balanced your bio-load is versus your filter. In general though, you should change water more frequently if you aren't going to skim.