No skimmer=More polyp extension??

[9supratt4]

The impeller for my skimmer pump finally went. So it's been a week today that I haven't had my skimmer on. When I looked into my tank last night, there was incredible polyp extension!! I have a piece of some kind of SPS that never had extensiom...in this new tank it started to have some, but last night the extension was incredible.
Is there a correlation here with the skimmer not running?? I can see the protein on top of the water in my sump...my DT has too much agitation so there is no film on that water.

 

[flower]

Originally Posted by 9supratt4
http:///forum/post/3182488
The impeller for my skimmer pump finally went. So it's been a week today that I haven't had my skimmer on. When I looked into my tank last night, there was incredible polyp extension!! I have a piece of some kind of SPS that never had extensiom...in this new tank it started to have some, but last night the extension was incredible.
Is there a correlation here with the skimmer not running?? I can see the protein on top of the water in my sump...my DT has too much agitation so there is no film on that water.

Most people skim the water too much like 24/7. It strips the food out of the water. Run your skimmer for four or five hours once a week and you will be fine and the food will help the coral.

 

[fishhunter]

Originally Posted by Flower
http:///forum/post/3182497

Most people skim the water too much like 24/7. It strips the food out of the water. Run your skimmer for four or five hours once a week and you will be fine and the food will help the coral.
Thats why if you are going to run your skimmer 24/7 You should feed daily with pyto or what not.

 

[9supratt4]

Weird....and I've always been told to run the skimmer 24/7 and that you don't need to feed the corals anything.

 

[deejeff442]

i have a 90 reef ,no fish just lots of lr cuc and a lot of corals.i have never run a skimmer and my corals are huge.
i believe unless you are pushing the limits of bioload in a tank you dont even need a skimmer.regular water changes which replace basic elements works better than skimming benifitial elements in the tank.
in fact when we moved i have my fowlr 225 tank i havnt gotten to putting my skimmer in the sump yet and the water always checks perfect.
in the 25 yrs i have been at this i really havnt noticed a noticable difference in a tank running a skimmer or not.but like i said i dont over stock.

 

[fishhunter]

Originally Posted by deejeff442
http:///forum/post/3182578
i have a 90 reef ,no fish just lots of lr cuc and a lot of corals.i have never run a skimmer and my corals are huge.
i believe unless you are pushing the limits of bioload in a tank you don't even need a skimmer.regular water changes which replace basic elements works better than skimming beneficial elements in the tank.
in fact when we moved i have my fowlr 225 tank i haven't gotten to putting my skimmer in the sump yet and the water always checks perfect.
in the 25 yrs i have been at this i really haven't noticed a noticeable difference in a tank running a skimmer or not.but like i said i dont over stock.
I find they really do help out in smaller systems, but bigger ones they have down side as If you do regular water changes would will keep the pollutants down as well as a skimmer! No saying they don't have there uses They do remove allot of crap from the water that you don't want that can cause you head ake. But they do remove allot of the food that is in the water! And yes ALL corals eat something to a extent. Light is there main source of food but if they have polyps or mouths they will eat something.

 

[9supratt4]

See I don't do water changes like I should....I do they once a month or month and a half.....so in my system its probably worth the skimmer

 

[stanlalee]

is this your first time looking at night? many sps show better extension at night. my torquois stag has long streamer polyp extension at night but you'd never know if you didn't look at night.

 

[cranberry]

I run all my skimmers 24/7. I don't buy into the whole "it stripes the water of everything" theory. There's way too many people who run longterm successful SPS tanks for that to be true. I don't know anyone in my local reef club that doesn't.

 

[spanko]

I am of the filter, skim, clean up the water as much as you can crowd. This allows some heavier feeding to be done and the coral and fish to benefit from it. I skim 24/7, change out the filter floss daily, dose vodka daily, dose amino acids daily, dose prodibio weekly trying to keep an ultra low nutrient system so I can feed the heck out of everyting daily. Seems to be working for me as I have some great SPS PE.

 

[9supratt4]

Originally Posted by Stanlalee
http:///forum/post/3182827
is this your first time looking at night? many sps show better extension at night. my torquois stag has long streamer polyp extension at night but you'd never know if you didn't look at night.
I always look in there at night. It's one of my favorite times to watch the tank!! No matter when at night I look in there, there is not much extension....now without the skimmer it's just incredible extension.
Originally Posted by Cranberry
http:///forum/post/3182879
I run all my skimmers 24/7. I don't buy into the whole "it stripes the water of everything" theory. There's way too many people who run longterm successful SPS tanks for that to be true. I don't know anyone in my local reef club that doesn't.
That was always my thinking as well.
Originally Posted by spanko
http:///forum/post/3182895
I am of the filter, skim, clean up the water as much as you can crowd. This allows some heavier feeding to be done and the coral and fish to benefit from it. I skim 24/7, change out the filter floss daily, dose vodka daily, dose amino acids daily, dose prodibio weekly trying to keep an ultra low nutrient system so I can feed the heck out of everyting daily. Seems to be working for me as I have some great SPS PE.
WOW!!! You do a lot daily!! I top=off just about every day and clean my filter socks once a week. I was running the skimmer 24/7 unitil it died...but the new impeller will be here today.
I'm excited to start running it again and see if the extension comes less....like a little experiment.

 

[fishhunter]

Originally Posted by spanko
http:///forum/post/3182895
I am of the filter, skim, clean up the water as much as you can crowd. This allows some heavier feeding to be done and the coral and fish to benefit from it. I skim 24/7, change out the filter floss daily, dose vodka daily, dose amino acids daily, dose prodibio weekly trying to keep an ultra low nutrient system so I can feed the heck out of everyting daily. Seems to be working for me as I have some great SPS PE.
Im with you, you should see my skimmer ITS HUGE!!!! Im going to run that beast 24/7. As well as the filtration, I got a home made trickle filter as well as a algie fuge. Im going to get as much out of my water as I can and I will feed every day. I think its the right way to go.

 

[nycbob]

skimmer should be running 24/7. a skimmer will never break in and run efficiently if run 4-5 hours per week. if u change water constantly like 30% weekly, then not running a skimmer is probably going to be fine.

 

[oneradtek]

I agree with the run protein skimmer 24-7. it also helps with airation of the water and keeps your PH good. of couse there will be more polyp extension when there is more crap in the water, its common sense. But ESPECIALLY SPS, theres more to coral health than polyp extension.

 

[eric b 125]

i'm interested to see what turning the skimmer back on will do.

 

[reefkprz]

hmm not sure how to approach this. but I'll wing it.
IMO
I dont think most people are capable of overskimming their tanks. most skimmers are overrated, and arent capable of stripping water for the tank sizes they are reccomended for. theoreticly it is possible but for most people exporting all the excess nutrients they can is essential because they are constantly adding more.
running a skimmer for 4 or five hours a week is going to get minimal results in so far as removing hydrophobic compounds (protiens etc) remember the hydrophyllic protiens are not removed by the skimmer so there is still protien compounds a skimmer wont get.
the extra oxygen and gas exchange provided by the skimmer far outweighs almost any theoretical "lack of food" if your fish are eating they are pooping there is more food where that came from.
The polyp extension increase you have noticed can be for a quite a few reasons, not all of them good. let me just list some of the Possible explinations.
1. an increase in protiens and gelbstoff may be decreasing light penetration so polyps are expanding more to try and capture more light.
2. there may be more food stuff in the water for capture.
3. the build up of terpenoid solutions may be triggering aggressive reactions from your corals, an increase in polyp extension to attempt to combat the antagonist.
4. increased trace element levels from not having the skimmer remove them (yes skimmers remove trace and major elements some more than others, this would only apply if you have done a water change while running skimmerless)
5. maybe when you looked into your tank at night you just caught the corals at the right time, many SPS/lps extend at night to catch various zooplankton that only comes out at night. some only extend for short periods of time and it is easy to miss the extension period.

 

[sean48183]

Not to mention if something happens in your tank like kid drops soap in or something dies a skimmer eats that stuff up pretty quickly. It might be the difference between catastrophic loss or minimal loss. I wouldn't run a tank without one.

 

[flower]

Originally Posted by sean48183
http:///forum/post/3183997
Not to mention if something happens in your tank like kid drops soap in or something dies a skimmer eats that stuff up pretty quickly. It might be the difference between catastrophic loss or minimal loss. I wouldn't run a tank without one.

A skimmer won't help with soap poison. I personally run my skimmer almost all the time. I never feed everyday because of cyano, which I get if I overfeed. My skimmer is not the best, and I am sure it doesn't strip out the food and stuff completely.
A friend of mine who has had his reef tank up and running for 26 years, and owns his own store, told me to only run my skimmer for 4-5 hours once a week. So I passed that info on when OP said his coral got better looking after the skimmer broke.
There are so many variables in reef keeping. Nobody has the exact type of equipment, nor the exact water parameters. So while there are basics to follow, each tank is as individual as the person keeping it. So test it out, and do what works best for your system.
I absolutely agree there are other reasons for polyp extension, but they won't look healthy for long...maybe a few days at best if they extend for a problem rather than good conditions.

 

[detane]

I run my skimmer 12hrs a day. Off at night. Everything has been fine.
Let me add that I do use filter socks, very large refigium, and baffle poly filters. I run the skimmer during the day because thats when I feed.
Everybodys tanks are diffrent. So it all does really depend on the tank, bio load, and other factors

 

[pbnj]

I read somewhere that even the best of skimmers can only remove about 30% of the proteins in a tank. Don't see any reason not to run them 24/7.