to skim or not to skim

[deejeff442]

i have been running a liverock fish tank for 10 years without a skimmer what is the benifit?i am sure this has been on here hundreds of times but i have never used a saltwater forum before.
thanks in advance jeff

 

[alexmir]

welcome to the boards!!!

I would say to definitely skim. I have decided to NEVER run any kind of a tank without running a protein skimmer. The benefit is that the water your fish are swimming in is MUCH cleaner. The skimmer removes all of the dissolved proteins(pee, poop, mucus, etc...) in the water that a regular filter cannot. This will help keep nitrates lower, and keep there from being a build up of dissolved nutrients in the water.
How large of a tank are you wanting to put it on? After seeing how the nasty stuff my skimmer pulls out of the water, i will ALWAYS run one.
I guess a good example would be living in the middle of a crowded city with all the people around smoking, and all the pollution in the air, and living in the country where the air is fresher and doesnt stink like it would in the city. Much healthier.

 

[noah's nemo]

I've had my 75 up for alittle over a year,no skimmer.I'm running 2 emperor 400's(each rated for 90gal.)about 90lbs. of LR,So far so good.I've heard alot of ppl swear by skimmers ,others are just fine with out them.I'll probably stay with things the way they are.I here they can be pretty loud also.

 

[thauro77]

You shpuld try to build the mega powerfull nitrate remover. Look for instructions on the reef tanks blog in there and this will take care of the phosphates and nitrates. Read through it, and you will see how you can work with out protein skimmer.