no mechanical filters or skimmer.

[reefcrazy]

is there any one out there that runs a reef tank with out mechanical filters and skimmer. i was reading a book aquarium corals by erik h borneman and in the last page it says that he runs a 500g reef tank with out any mechanical filtration. how he does it would be good to know.

 

[reefcrazy]

i mean how do you do it maintainace, how often do you do water changes, how mush live rock, how mush live sand etc. also how long have you been doing it for. i will like to trow away my filters and skimmer.

 

[y2says]

I'm running a 35g hex without any mechanical filtration. I have a Filstar canister that came with the tank when I bought it, but I took all the filter pads out of it. I'm just using it as a powerhead. So far so good in my tank except for a little algae. This is due to the phosphate level, but now I'm using RO water so they should go away soon. I think if you have enough l/r and l/s and a fully stock tank like mentioned above, you should be fine.

 

[nm reef]

I've also managed to go filterless/skimmerless........been like that for 3 months now....only filtration is 100+ lbs lr....dsb(6 inches)...35 gal refugium(with a DSB & assorted macro algae)...not a problem....everything stable and lower maintenance.......but as sammy mentioned(jwtrogan also).....personally I'd insure that the system was mature/stable/balanced prior to going filterless............plus experience helps to avoid sudden shifts in stability

 

[rhomer]

If you would like to go with less sand, you can easily add a plenum this will help lower nitrate levels, and should eliminate the need for a skimmer. I ran a 20 gal mini reef using a plenum 2 inches of cc, 2 inches of ls, and 30 lbs of lr.
I had 2 powerheads and no filters. I also didn't feed the fish (2 perculas). I just let them eat what was in the tank.

 

[rhomer]

I forgot I had this setup up for about 2 1/2 years and I never, (I mean really lazy here) never changed the water.