pantherguy30 Posted August 22, 2009 Share Posted August 22, 2009 Wanted to see who has had good success with running a reef tank without a skimmer. I have little to no room in my stand and am tired of working around my skimmer to perform maintenence. Plus it seems every time I go to clean the skimmer I seem to break a part it's pump.DOH! I have about a 2" layer of sand in my tank and the tank has been running for almost a year now. I have been running a recurculating skimmer thats rated for about 300 gallons. Keep in mind my tank is only 50 gallons.(nutty) I have 2flase percs and a mandrin goby. the rest is all lps,sps, and some shrooms. I'm running about 60+ pounds of live rock in the display and some rubble in the sump. I have a sock that gets changed out once a week and I do a 10 gallon water change every 2 weeks. Since I just broke another part on the pump tonight! I'm gonna try and give this a go without one. Please feel free to give me your 2 cents(scary) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
finch6013 Posted August 22, 2009 Share Posted August 22, 2009 I know a guy that has a couple SW reef tanks that have no skimmer. He has to keep up on tank husbandry and watch the perams close but if done right I know it works. I have seen it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay Posted August 22, 2009 Share Posted August 22, 2009 I know a guy that has a couple SW reef tanks that have no skimmer. He has to keep up on tank husbandry and watch the perams close but if done right I know it works. I have seen it Aquatic ecosystems does skimmerless I think. Its a mud substrate refugium I think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
finch6013 Posted August 22, 2009 Share Posted August 22, 2009 the guy I know does two small water changes per week on a 55g Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coralreefer Posted August 22, 2009 Share Posted August 22, 2009 Options include-- 1) Miracle Mud 2) Algae scrubber Do a check on each...you might do alright! DrMerle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePremiumAquarium Posted August 22, 2009 Share Posted August 22, 2009 With that kind of bioload I feel that you should do alright without a skimmer. You have a fair amount of LR. Adding miracle mud wouldn't hurt but I have run a tank and have had friends that have tanks that run skimmerless and as long as there is a good CUC, not too many fish, regular water changes, and lots of good live rock, there has never been a problem. In fact in one of my friends tank, he has some of the best looking coral! Garrett Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beckie Posted August 22, 2009 Share Posted August 22, 2009 I have a 150 with sump/fug with deep sand bed. I have 5 fish & lps,sps. It has been running for 9 mths. I don't have a skimmer. I was thinking of adding one but some have said "if it aint broke don't fix it". Still wondering if I should or not. Beckie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pantherguy30 Posted August 23, 2009 Author Share Posted August 23, 2009 So would Miracle Mud be the one to go with. Looks like there are a few other name brands out there. Also I've seen a couple of these mud systems useing bioballs. I havent seen those being used much anymore. Are they necesarry for this type of setup? Also what type of macro algea do most prefer in this setup? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
undrtkr_00 Posted August 23, 2009 Share Posted August 23, 2009 I have a 110g tank and have never run a skimmer (2.5 years). I have a blend of softies, LPS, and SPS. I have no intention of running one anytime soon. I don't have anything like miracle mud. Here is my maintenance practice/philosophy: DON'T OVERFEED! Keep low to moderate bioload for your size of tank. Deep sand bed (mine varies from 3-5" in different parts of the tank) and plenty of live rock keeps nitrates at or near 0. Have a large, diverse cleanup crew to break down detritus and keep any nuisance algae in check. 1/3 water change once per month. Run GFO and a grow large amount of macroalgae to keep phosphates down. I also now run carbon which really seemed to help keep the allelopathy (chemical warfare) in check. About 3 months ago I completely took out my filter sock, and have not seen any downside as of yet. I'm pretty happy with my results so far, and plan to keep doing things this way. You have a pretty small bioload, but the main thing, IMO is to make sure you are not overfeeding for the few fish you do have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FishKiler Posted August 29, 2009 Share Posted August 29, 2009 IMHO your tank is a closed system if you put something in (food) you must take the waste out or you are going to have a build up of whatever you are putting in. In the skimmer less systems I have seen it most often was some sort of combination algae / carbon export. If you have mostly LPS and softies they probably do better with slightly dirty water. I have a few acans that I almost lost due to a low nutrients, I had to feed them to get them healthy. You should probably change that sock more often then once a week. Every day is ideal. I used to run a sock, but then read somewhere that it becomes compost pile if you don't change it every day. The sock traps particles that could have been skimmed out and they decompose to what the skimmer cant pull. Just my $0.02 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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