water change vs HOB skimmer

[miked78231]

if i were to do a weekly water change would i really need my red sea HOB skimmer?

[Reef69]

Do you know what a skimmer does?

[miked78231]

yup, its just that ive read in some other threads, (cant find them right now) that you can get away with out using a skimmer if you do weekly changes.

[Reef69]

..What does it do?

[miked78231]

protein skimmers help prevent nitrate buildup, remove decaying matter and toxins, and replenish oxygen available to fish

[pilot_bell777]

Mike....a few things that I think you should look at are:

1. You have a hard time getting salt, so is a weekly water change really doable?
2. A combination of both a weekly water change and the skimmer is best
3. Even though you can get away with not running a skimmer, these things are built for us as much as our tanks, to make our lives a little easier.

Is there a reason you want to get rid of it?

[miked78231]

well i was going to see if anyone wanted to trade for salt. :blush maybe for a bucket.

[C.Mydas]

Mike-
Whether you need one or not is debatable to some. That water change rule applies more to nanos, not large tanks. I also think a skimmer is a MUST. You'll save yourself alot of heartache and maintaining your water quality will be easier. In addition, there are some days you just dont have time to do a water change or weeks where you cant get motivated enough to do one, the skimmer will give you a little wiggle room. BTW_ even with a skimmer you should be doing water changes. We saw one of the biggest changes in our coral quality (when we were newbies) when we started doing our regular water changes with RO/DI. A skimmer is not something you want to skimp on. Hope that helps.

[Reef69]

To answer your question, depending of the size of the tank, you can get away with it not having a skimmer, but you have to do waterchanges weekly, religiously..if you dont have money for the salt..How are you going to do the waterchanges..

..Im a psyc student so im gonna give you this analogy..

..I save all my life, im finally 60 years old and i spend all my savings and buy myself a ferrari superamerica..$300,000 car. I spend all my money on it, drive around, and burn the full tank of gas in a day...i have no money for gas...What do i do??..get rid of the car and get my money back since i cannot afford to maintain it.

[miked78231]

well i understand that, but water changes is more important then my HOB right now. also, i know im going to get a lot of "stuff" for what im about to say but, me and my girlfriend dont have a lot of money right now. we are both going through some hard times with christmas, rent and bills. the last few months were pretty hard money wise so i cant just run down and pick up what i need for the tank. i know this hobby is an exspensive one and theres a lot of things that i cant skimp out on but i always make sure that my fish are fed and my tank gets a water change twice a month. for now this is all i can do. so i was going to see if i could trade my skimmer for a bucket of salt since water changes seems to be more imporant. ok bring on the comments and i know there going to be ugly.

[Dozer]

I agree with what others have said on this thread. I'm assuming you're referring to a reef tank with corals? If you are doing fish only or fish only w/live rock, or fish, live rock and maybe zenia I'd say you can get away with no skimmer or refugium. (I still personally wouldn't, but I can see it being done). If, however, your plan is to keep any other types of corals and/or more sensitive reef type critters, I wouldn't try it without a skimmer. Just personal opinion, and that's not to say it's not possible- only that it makes things more difficult to keep happy and alive imo.

Good luck and if you ever make your way up to far north Austin/Round Rock area, I will give you some salt (of course gas money will cost you more than the salt, lol).

[miked78231]

lol thanks for the offer. right now im just running a 55g with clown, yellow tang, 2 yellow tailed damsels, and a snowflake eel with about 60lbs of LR. corals wont be for awhile.

[Dozer]

anytime.

miked- I don't know your situation, but why not keep the skimmer and ask for a bucket of salt for Christmas? Seems like a reasonably priced gift from a relative or someone.

[miked78231]

never thought of that. that might work! heh heh

[brewercm]

Get a good skimmer, or at least keep the skimmer you have. I'd cut back on the water changes myself to once a month, possibly even every other month and get a good skimmer. You aren't keeping corals that are using up the nutrients from the salt at the moment so it's less important right now in your case. There's probably a bunch on here that won't agree with me on this but I only do water changes once a month at most, and have gone as long as three months without loosing a single animal.

[Ram_Puppy]

MIKE, where do you live? I have a 200 gallon bucket of oceanic salt I don't want anymore... I think I used about 40 gallons of capacity on it.

[miked78231]

castle hills area

[Richard]

Keep the skimmer. If you'll do a 5% water change (that's only two gallons for your tank) weekly without ever missing then you will ultimately have a very nice tank. You don't have to spend a fortune on this hobby and you can have a great tank if you will be patient and stay within the limits of your setup.

Why don't you list everything about your setup (equipment, lights, using tap/di/ro water?, what do you feed & how much/often, all livestock, any water parameters you know, any problems your having like algae or whatever). Maybe we can help you get a nice tank without spending a ton of money.

I'll try to help you if you...
1.) don't pm me constantly because I get too many pm's already
2.) Keep your questions understandable and clean i.e. algae is called algae NOT c-word

You've been taking ALOT of flack from people here and you keep trying so that's a good sign I think. Plus your yellow tang is still alive so you've already done better than ALOT of people. FWIW I started in this hobby with a 55 gallon with an undergravel filter AND I didn't have much money. Eventually I added the best skimmer I could find at any store (no internet back then) it was a plastic tube with a wooden airstone in it that clogged up every week or two. It was a pretty nice tank though so it can be done.

[miked78231]

sounds good! well i have a 55g with a cheap compact 45w light, 2 powerheads one being a maxijet 1200 and one being a maxijet 900, i have a eheim canister filter and a red sea HOB skimmer. when i do water changes i use tap but here pretty soon i will be using that ozarka water (its just a pain to carry 2 blocks), i feed my fish 2 pinchs a day of tetra marine flakes with brine shrimp and im having an outbreak of green and brown algea. i turn my lights on at 8am and turn them off at 8pm. as for live stock i posted that in one of the replys.

[Reef69]

..When you use tap water..do you use any type of dechlorinator??

[miked78231]

no

[Reef69]

..well you have to..they usually run $2, maybe less.. Im surprised your fish havent died..so, please find a couple of bucks and buy some..

[miked78231]

is it that stuff that you add to the water and have to let sit over night?

[JimD]

That skimmers virtually useless without more flow to get the organics to its intake. The tangs and the eel alone are generating tons of detritus most likely settling on the bottom and in the rocks, that along with tap water are for sure fueling your algae. You need more flow, like three more Maxi 1200's at least. Keep the skimmer (or get a better one) more flow, zero tds water for frequent water changes, this should get you on the right path.

[miked78231]

sounds good! how much are maxi jet 1200's i got both of mine for 20 but i think i was ripped off like everything else i got

[Reef69]

Yeah, that tap water is a killer, im surprised those fish are still alive...And like Jim said, that water is the reason you have algea, plus the lack of flow..and perhaps the tank is still cycling. When you decided to give this a try, who helped you man?..id like to know..

[JimD]

If you think youre getting ripped off, you most likely are. Spend some time in the "sponsors" section of this site, shop around there and also keep an eye on the "for sale" forum and post an ad in the "want to buy" forum.

[miked78231]

well i was screwed into the hobby. this guy i knew from work talked about the hobby 24/7 so i started to get a little interested right. well he comes up to me and says that he can get me a 55g tank, stand, canopy, and compacts that had 4/45 (i think that was the lights) for 120. so i agreed, the next day he only brought the stand and the tank and said that the guy had dropped the canopy with lights and broke them and he as going to get me some other lights so i only paid him half. 2 weeks later he give me these crap *** lights so i paid him. later on i found out that these were only 10.00 lights that he got for cleaning this chicks tank, then he charged me 30 for a used canister filter and 20 for 2 old power heads. you have to understand though that at the time i thought that this was an awesome deal. i didnt know anything. then the guy promises that he will help me with any questions or problems that i have. oh and he also sold me some ugly *** rock for like 4 bucks a lb. after everything was up and running, like 2 days later he just blew me off and everytime i had a problem he said he was unsure or that he was busy. he did tell me about this site but talked **** about everyone on here. so all he did was hussle me for some cash, got me stuck into the hobby and now im addicted with no money.

[Richard]

Well personally I think you could just up the lighting a little and eventually have the maast TOTM with that equipment.

You definitely need to use some dechlorinator with the tap water. I like Prime but there are plenty other brands. Ultimately you would do better to use RO/di water all of the time but if that's not feasable then you should at least use it for topping off the tank and try to do 50/50 tap/RO for the water changes.

Much more to say but I'm in the middle of tearing my tank apart so I'll post later...

[Reef69]

..I guess we all get ripped off one way or another when we start the hobby..

..here's what i would do if i were you..

1- Star using dechlorinator on all the tap water you use. it would be better that you didnt use any at all..but like Richard said, if you cant do a full RO waterchange, do 50-50..

2-Try to get a hold of a couple of more powerheads..water movement is essencial..

3-Hang on to that skimmer..

4-Do a waterchange once every 2 weeks

5-that is not a proper diet for your fish, try to get a hold of some formula foods, nori for your tang..they are herbivores..

6- ..and dont listen to anybody that isnt from MAAST.

[miked78231]

well i do have a pack of formula two with 2% garlic but i left it out one night and then threw it back into the frezzer so i wasnt sure if it was still good or not so i just left it alone.

[Reef69]

..I wouldn't use it..

[Ram_Puppy]

you can buy some 5 gallon water jugs at walmart and fill them out of the machine at HEB pretty cheap, even better would be to get the water from richard, but I don't think you need to worry about RO water right now. My buddy brian has a great tank running of standard tap. I agree yes, you can get better results out of RO water, but if you can't afford it, do what you can.

Prime is great stuff, smells like crap, but it works great.

[miked78231]

well the water is pretty cheap at my HEB its only 1.50 for 5g's but its a pain cause i would have to carry these jugs for like 2 blocks. i tried this once and it wasnt fun.

[Ram_Puppy]

I can not imagine that carrying it would be any fun at all...

[demodiki]

When I was in the army we would carry 5 gallons of water each to start a mission. That didn't include our other gear. That's heavy. Real heavy.

/hijack off

[miked78231]

well then it shouldnt be a prob for you, i will give you my address and show you where the HEB is at then you can be on your way.

[demodiki]

Nah, it's more fun to come on here and read of you crying about it. :)

[Reef69]

..LMAO!

[Richard]

Well here is what I would do if it were my tank and I was in your position...

1.) Keep the equipment you currently have and keep learning. Knowledge will help you more than any fancy equipment.

2.) First consider the tank fully stocked as far as fish go. Actually I would lose the eel to make room for some small active reef safe fish and some shrimps down the road. That's just my personal preference though.

3.) Start using ro water for top off and 50% RO water / 50% tap water for water changes. Do a 2 gallon water change weekly. SA water is very alkaline so you can take advantage of that by using a 50/50 mix. This will reduce the amount of phosphate you are adding to the tank and still provide carbonates to help keep your alkalinity and ph at an acceptable level. If you start using only ro water then you'll have to start buying some additives ($) then you'll need test kits (more $). This isn't an ideal way to maintain your alkalinity but will work for now and should keep it in the ballpark of what you want it to be.

4.) Get a container that is about 6" L X 4" W and about 6" high and fill it with HDL Tri Pelletized carbon. Then stick it in a back corner of your tank. You will never change out this carbon so you can put rocks around it to keep it out of sight but . You probably need 2lbs of HDL Tri Pelletized carbon so your looking at a one time expense of around $15. So what is this for? It will take several months to start working but eventually it will provide an area for bacteria to grow that will remove nitrate (called denitrification) and also provide an area for bacteria that will remove phosphate (they take phosphate out of the water and store it as polyphosphate). So this will help keep your algae problems under control since all nuisance algaes require nitrogen and phosphate to grow.

5.) Start saving for the next purchases which would be...

Alkalinity test kit - If I could only have one test kit it would be an alkalinity kit. From that you can first start telling if you should use more/less tap water to keep your alk where you want it. And eventually start using all RO water and a balanced additive like B-ionic to keep your alkalinity and calcium in a decent range.

A good beginner's book - Lot's to choose from.

Then upgrade the lighting so you can start adding corals. You don't HAVE to have a crotch rocket lighting system to have a really nice reef tank. I would go with T5 lights since they use less electricity and the bulbs don't have to be replaced as often. You could go with 2 - 48" coralife normal output t5 fixtures which would let you do a nice softie tank. They are about $50 each for the fixture and 2 bulbs (1 actinic and 1 10K). Or you could go with high output t5 lights. Two 48" HO t5 bulbs would let you do a very nice tank. Just watch out for deals that are too good to be true - they usually aren't true.

Then I would start adding corals starting with different colored mushroom polyps. They are very hardy and grow like weeds when they are happy so they are a great first coral to start with. You could probably get some cheap or free frags from someone here on maast. After those are doing well in your tank I would start getting some different hardy soft corals. Again you could start with frags which would be cheap or free and just let them grow.

And keep reading and asking questions. Someday even Diego (Reef69) might be asking you questions.

Hope that helps.

[Reef69]

Someday even Diego (Reef69) might be asking you questions.

Hope that helps.


...Hahaha x 1000,000,000..!!!..Richard's got jokes!!! 8)

[miked78231]

that more then helps. thats all great man, thanks so much for the time you put into this thread. ill do eveything that you wrote then i will let you know how things work out. thanks a lot

[Richard]

I thought you would like that Diego <_< .

Is it your loooong HAHA that stretched the screen? Hurts my brain!

[JimD]

Do you know what a skimmer does?

hhmmm, Richard, apparently, thats already happening! lmao!

[Richard]

LOL! Good one Jim!

[Reef69]

..Yeah, it was pretty funny..lol..Ill edit so people dont have to scroll around..LOL..