Skimmerless???

[Troy Valentine]

How many Maastards are running systems that are skimmerless? And if so, what kind of results have you notice(good, bad, otherwise)?

[LuckySingh]

i ran my 1st cube skimmerless for about a year........I hardly feed my tank so i didnt bother me

[justahobby]

Been skimmerless on the BC14 and happy with it.

[Pennies2Cents]

We turned ours off completely. The result has been amazing. Everthing is opening up like they should. Where as before, we were either loosing or none of the coral were showing their polyps. The growth has improved as well. All is good.

[Mr Cob]

I ran my 55g skimmerless since day one. It just hit a year this month and I tore it down a couple of weeks ago. I did not dose anything and did somewhat bi-weekly water changes (I would forget a lot though). The display also had a 5" sandbed.

System was T5's and LED blues, large sump with large refugium full of chaeto macro and 5" DSB.

I could not keep SPS in this system aside from Hydnophora. Softies and acans did well in this tank.

BIGGEST problem for me was hair algae....I never got that under control aside from using a sea hare. Not blaming the lack of a skimmer but I'm sure it might have helped in this system since the nutrients were so high.

This tank was just a little neglected since it took a second seat to the MCC tanks full of frags and $$$

[alton]

On my Small tanks with 25% water changes weekly I never ran a skimmer. On my larger tanks you need them unless you have a bunch of Xenia like my 158 was and I could not run a skimmer or my Xenia would not pulse.

[hobogato]

i am running my current tank (250 gallon) skimmerless and sumpless. i have and extremely deep sand bed and lots of macroalgae growing in the tank. the only drawback i have seen so far is the film that forms on the surface of the water. i do small (5 gallon) water changes twice a week, and use a container to dip the water out of the tank at the surface to get rid of the film.

[Mr Cob]

yeah, I noticed the film as well....I ran a sump so I didn't see it in the display but in the last chamber of the sump I would get a film....

[hobogato]

oh yeah, just want to add that i do have lps, softies, anemones, and sps in this tank. sps are dark in coloration, but since the tank is sunlit, that probably effects coloration quite a bit as well.

[ErikH]

I ran my old 75 skimmerless for about a year and a half. It was packed, and I never had any problems. I think skimmers are great for aeration though, as well as the added benefit of removing waste materials.