Informal Poll: How many people rely soley on live rock/sand

[dvmsn]

I have not run a protein skimmer or any other outside filter on my tank for about a year and am wondering how common this is.

 

[danmhippo]

Interesting, No skimmer and occasional Carbons, Huh....? Do you do water changes? If yes, that may be the answer why you have been sucessful with your tank.

How big is your tank, stocking level, and water change quantity and frequencies?

 

[esmithiii]

I use a good skimmer, carbon once a month and 20% water change monthly. 90 lbs LR, 5-6" DSB and reverse daylight sump/refugium w/ caulerpa. My corals look great.

E

 

[Anonymous]

I just run carbon. My tank has been set up for 4 months and I have an Catalaphyllia jardenei and an algae blenny. I am getting my first "SPS" the 26th. Tank is 100, 4"DSB, 80-90 lbs LR. there are many people that run skimmerless, it is not as uncommon as one would think.

 

[REEF-ER]

Whats a skimmer? Whats carbon? j/k i dont run anything but 3-4 inch sand bed and 55lbs of rock on my 25g, its been up for a year, On my new clam and SPS tank its a 29g with a cpr hang-on refugium with miracle mud and callerpa. its has a 4-inch sand bed and, about 35lbs of L.R. I would add more rock but, I used Tongan branching rock along with Fiji and Marshall Isle, so i dont have alot of room because i wanted to put SPS frags on the branch tips so they can get good ciculation. as opposed to just a stack of rocks with crappy circulation and many dead spots in tank. SO FAR SO GOOD on the 29g its been up for 2 weeks. as soon as i get a camera i will show some pics

 

[davelin315]

For my first 4 or 5 years of reefing, I didn't run anything but my own cultured live rock (maybe 2 or 3 5 pound chunks of real live rock added through the years) and a 1-2" crushed coral substrate. No skimmer, no carbon, no anything. I did water changes periodically, and I had great results. It was a 55 that was stuffed as full as I could afford, and it had a ton of soft corals, some lps, and one or two sps. Lots of inverts as well, and fish, too. Besides nitrates being a bit high (up to 10ppm and then I'd do a water change), I never had any problems. I didn't dose anything, no strotium/molybdenum, iodine, kalk, nothing. Never had any hair algae or cyanobacteria, either. It can be done, and done very successfully. In fact, there are people out there who would never in a million years add a skimmer to their tank, and just run live rock and sand.

 

[bgdiving]

I run several tanks with out skimmers or other filtration The 2 largest are each 170 gal neither has a sump. The newest one set up in Feb 2001 has an 8 inch deep sand bed (silicate sand mostly) and has had about a total of 20% water change since set up. stocked with mainly SPSs, Pom Pom Xenias and some bright green stars, seems to be doing fine basicly no live rock in this tank. The other 170 has about 3 1/2 inches of very old crushed coral that I've been adding fine sand to it recently, initally set up as a fish only tank about 18 years ago, started adding corals about 3years ago. Had an algae problem with that 18year old crushed coral substrate (use to be crushed coral undergravel filter) but that seems under control since I started to switch it over to a deeper fine particle sand bed on top of the old crushed coral. I got rid of the skimmer about 5 months ago and things seem to be improving, do about a 10% water change/month and have a bunch of rock although most of it started out as dead rock that was bleasched 10 to 18 years ago before adding to the tank. have a mix of SPS's , LPS's and softies along with several fish.

Some of my smaller tanks (55s and 20 gal tanks) have been running without a skimmer for over 2 years.

[ September 18, 2001: Message edited by: bgdiving ]

 

[Anonymous]

But judging from all the sewage skimmers pull from the water, it's hard to imagine how the tanks get along without them.

I personally will probably go with a mildly undersized skimmer in my next system, to reach a happy medium.

 

[randy holmes-farley]

In a system with no skimming, no carbon, and no algae removal, I'd have to wonder where the phosphate was going, and how high the concentration was in the water column.

 

[danmhippo]

I think that's why the skimmerless systems has to have regular change schedules to go with it in addition to barely minimal feeding. Most of the skimmerless tanks I have seen (including one at the LFS) are SPS or photosynthesis softies only tanks. You can hardly find fishes in those tanks.

 

[dvmsn]

Ihave a 30 gal with a 20 gal sump. There is a relatively high coral load. "Corals" include softies, sps, lps, mushrooms, and clams. I have 2-1 inch, damsels, and 1 1/2 inch six-line wrass wrasse, and a one inch panther grouper (I know he wil have to get a new tank before long). I feed about a half a cube of brine shrimp or other frozen food every day or other day. I think that the large number of corals are responsible for removing the phosphate from the system. I change about 10% every month or so. I wish I had pictures to prove that algea levels are low and corals are fully expanding.

 

[randy holmes-farley]

I just wonder because if a sandbed is removing nitrate (and thus nitrogen from the system), then the nitrogen and phosphorus that remain will not be in the proper Redfield ratio for growth, assuming that it came in as tissue in the food. There should be excess phosphorus.

Maybe the sand isn't doing much in the way of nitrogen cycling in these systems. In my tank I don't think that it does much because macroalgae get the nitrogen first.

[ September 18, 2001: Message edited by: Randy Holmes-Farley ]

 

[Anonymous]

Well, I don't know where the phosphate, or any of the other chemicals go, but I know they don't show up on my test kits. Is there a mechanism that works in a DSB to bind phosphate? I feed a bit for the load I have, one 1/2" cube of enriched brine, a pinch of reef flake, a pinch of spiruina, a 2"X2" sheet of nori, or some seaweed select every day. My fish are PBT, algae blenny. My corals are a Fungia sp. and Catalaphyllia jardinei. Ca stays at 400-450, alk 4-4.5 meq/l, pH 8.2-8.4, dose kalk 24/7, coralline growing like a weed. I know that my system has more than barely minimum and it only increases as time goes on. After I add the "SPS" I will start adding my homemade mix as well as the rest. My water changes have been 50% after the initial cycle and 1 25% change a week ago. I only change the water to replace trace elements that may or may not get depleted or raised to a dangerous level. Hopefully that type of question will get addressed by the "Shimek water test". It is my intention to add 7 Pseudanthias dispar after a month or two of getting the corals the 26th. I think the slowness that the stocking is taking place plays a large role in the systems ability to handle the varying loads. A new addition is not done until the system is stablized after the last additions increased bioload.

[ September 18, 2001: Message edited by: SteveNichols ]

[ September 18, 2001: Message edited by: SteveNichols ]

 

[randy holmes-farley]

Steve:

But you run carbon. It's the people with no way to remove organics that could have the phosphate issue.

FWIW, Ron's test won't tell us anything about phosphate that a simple Hach kit hasn't already told us.

[ September 18, 2001: Message edited by: Randy Holmes-Farley ]

 

[bezzer]

I have been running a FOWLR for over a year with a 5" DSB, 75 lbs of various LR and no other filtration. The sump is a 20 gallon All Glass tank which houses the heater and return pump.
I've only done one 25% water change about 6 months ago and all living inhabitants in my tank are heathy and growing.
I feed the tank once a day during the week and twice a day over the weekends.
I guess it could be luck but I subscribe to the saying, "if it ain't broke...don't fix it".
It's a low tech tank with a high tech result IMO.

Thanks,