protein skimming?

[vision]

if i got a refugium with live rock and live sand along with some saltwater plants do i need to protein skim??? just wondering i have heard different things from lfs's you guys seem to know a little bit more. any info would be great.

 

[unknown]

How big is your refugium and if you have lots of water movment I would say No you should not need one. That is JMO on that though.
Hope this helped
Vince.:happyfish

 

[cprdnick]

What kind of bio-load do you have? How much LR would you have total after adding the fuge? I have read about some people with larger tanks using no skimmer, but I wouldn't go that route. If you have a good enough bio-filter you shouldn't NEED one, but it is a good thing to have.

 

[vision]

i will have about 2 inch of live sand and a couple of pieces of live rock in my fuge. my tank is 29 gal i will have 45 pound of lr in my tank with 2 -10lbs bags of livesand.

 

[oceanminded]

You all can get on me for this but I have never had a protein skimmer, I have never done water changes, and never will. The reason Im saying this is because I have tried the 20% water changes and have lost fish. Basically, when you use a protein skimmer you are taking vital trace elements out of the water., how can that be good? Same with water changes. Leave well enough alone. I have had 3 successful tanks(10, 16 and55). This is just how I operate with my fish tanks and my experience.

 

[smoothounds]

Oceanminded what do you have in your tank? Any fish or corals? Have you ever tested for nitrates? Eventually you will have a nitrate problem without using a protein skimmer or doing water changes. That is the purpose of both. Maybe your just lucky.

 

[saltymist]

Protein skimmers are good devices, I had one on my 55 gallon reef tank, but sold off the tank. The reason why it was there in the first place was more to extend the time period between water changes since I lived a fair distance from the LFS and didnt like lugging home bottles of water, and the larger the tank, the more water you are changing on a weekly basis.
But now I have 3 12 gallon nanos and dont see the need for a protein skimmer since the amount of water that I change on a weekly basis is minimal, like 1 to 2 gallons per tank per week which keeps the nitrates down and is not expensive, like maybe $4 to $5 /week (because I buy the premixed water, and I now keep 4, five gallon containers so that I dont have to go to the LFS very often, and thus avoid temptation to buy that new addition to the tank.)

 

[overanalyzer]

I did not have skimmers on my 5 or 20 (still don't on my 20) and I have a prism on my 29 but I only run the skimmer portion for short periods of time- usually while hte wife and I are gone on Monday and Tuesday and then @ night if we go out to dinner - since it is noisy.
If you do regular water changes and have adequate other filtration then a skimmer in a nano is not neccesary!