My first skimmerless system

[Timfish]

I thought I'd start a thread about the first skimmerless system I started almost 20 years ago. For this first post here's a video when it was 17 years old: http://youtu.be/5AnmQXmE8d0 and for those wanting to know about the filtration setup it's just an empty sump: http://youtu.be/WDj0daKV2B8 In the video's the original animals added in 1997 include the Purple Tang, Green Brittle Star, Watermelon, Pin Stripe and Purple mushroom polyps and leather Toadstools. Recent water parameters are:

Recent water parameters:

Alkalinity 5-10 dKH
pH 7.8 - 8.1
Salinity 1.022 - 1.027
Temp 76 - 78
Nitrate 1 mg/l
PO4 2 mg/l

And the tank is 210 gallons (24" x 24" x 84"). It gets a 15 gallon water change each week (roughly 6-7% guessing the total system volume is around 220 gallons). Evaporation is 5 - 10 gallons a week during the summer and winter, less during the fall and spring and besides adding fresh water before cleaning the new saltwater is usually weak to make up for increased seasonal evaporation.

Dosing is a combination of CaribSea's Buffer Plus and Aragamight in an auto feeder so it drops in a little early each morning.

[Coffeeinbed]

Nice work.


Do you think water volume is a heavy factor in "skimmerless" success?

Or another way to put it - skimmerless systems are not recommended for volumes below _________?


Futzing with and adjusting equipment looses it's luster over time.

[THE ROOK]

Boy those are some large swings in Alk and Salinity.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

[Coffeeinbed]

Boy those are some large swings in Alk and Salinity.

I noticed the same thing but he seems be having success.

And isn't a PH of 7.8 a little dangerous? I can't get my tank (Coral Pro) to go below a PH of 8.4.

But again, he's having success. Would like more info.

[bowhunterj]

You don't seem to have much water movement is your tank always that calm?

[Timfish]

Here's water parameters and pics for this week:

Alk 7
pH 8.1
T 77
Mag 1040
Calcium 340
Nitrate <.25

[Timfish]

Originally Posted by Coffeeinbed

Nice work.
Do you think water volume is a heavy factor in "skimmerless" success?
Or another way to put it - skimmerless systems are not recommended for volumes below _________?
Futzing with and adjusting equipment looses it's luster over time.

Thank You! I don't think water volume has any relevence. The use of skimmers with reefs systems has not really been studied much at all. From what I had read starting with the first description of Lee Chin Eng's system and Raymond Hunzigers articles in TFH in the mid 80's to Delbeek and Sprung's writings in the 90's it seemed to me skimmers at best were unnecessary.

Originally Posted by THE ROOK

Boy those are some large swings in Alk and Salinity.

Originally Posted by Coffeeinbed

I noticed the same thing but he seems be having success.
And isn't a PH of 7.8 a little dangerous? I can't get my tank (Coral Pro) to go below a PH of 8.4.
But again, he's having success. Would like more info.

All other variables being equal calcification is highest at a pH of 7.84. One research paper looking at what might happen with the higher temps and lower pH caused by global warming found corals can have higher chlorophyll, protein and zooxanthellae numbers at a pH of 7.5 than at a pH of 8.1.

Originally Posted by bowhunterj

You don't seem to have much water movement is your tank always that calm?

Yeah, most stoney corals we keep do not need the high flow rates often called for (some gorgonians need high flow rates though). Check out Nikko reef http://www.whoi.edu/news-release/palau-corals.

[Timfish]

Here's a series of picture from last week:

[2smokes]

Its probably most beautifull soft coral reef ive seen soo far.

[Timfish]

Originally Posted by 2smokes

Its probably most beautifull soft coral reef ive seen soo far.

Thank you! I'll get close ups of the stonys next time.

[2smokes]

Originally Posted by Timfish

Thank you! I'll get close ups of the stonys next time.

I seened the lps corals on the sand bed.But the softies are what makes this aquarium stunning.

[Twoface14]

To be honest I have been running my 75 skimmerless for about 4 months now due to a pump failure. Been meaning to replace it but I think it's been doing very well. Tons of growth in softies and sps and my lps are splitting as well. I can't 100% say it's because of the skimmer but it does seem odd it all happened around the same time

[vikinglord13]

Wow, nice looking tank. I've always been told skimmerless systems were only possible on smaller tank, yet, here you have a larger tank that is successfully kept as skimmerless. Thank you for posting. It's nice seeing skimmerless success over a long period of time on such a large tank - motivational actually.

It doesn't look like you have too heavy of a bioload (which is what I would expect with a skimmerless system). Looks like you have a very nice balance.

I must say, given I'm battling a GHA outbreak due to phosphate leaking from my rocks, I'm astounded you have such a clean tank having no filtration. Mine is skimmerless as well, but man. One of these days I hope my tank will be clean like that.

[tkeracer619]

Looks great!

[boxfishpooalot]

Nice tank! All those softies look great.

What do you feed the fish? Do you do water changes? What kind of lighting? Is the air bubbler and return pump the only water movement? Do you run any carbon/po4 remover? How deep is your sandbed? What is the average grain size of your sand? How much algae grows in the tank/glass?

[A sea K]

How do your mushrooms respond when alk gets near the upper end of your 5-10dkh range? I let my alk slip pretty low and have started to bring it up slowly(6.4 to 6.8 in 10 days) and my mushrooms have begun to show a negative effect.

[Timfish]

Originally Posted by 2smokes

I seened the lps corals on the sand bed.But the softies are what makes this aquarium stunning.

Thanks again! The various mushrooms and initial toadstool are original from '97 (along with the Green Brittle Star) The Tri-Color Frogspawn has been in there for ages. Orange/green zoas since '98. I'm particularly proud of the Fungia, there's multiple "polyp buds" making new polyps (interesting piece of trivia Fungiids are one of the corals we know have a life expectancy, roughly 40 years). I've been in the process of removing the anthelia and adding acros, montis and birdsnest slowly for a while.

[Timfish]

Originally Posted by Twoface14

To be honest I have been running my 75 skimmerless for about 4 months now due to a pump failure. Been meaning to replace it but I think it's been doing very well. Tons of growth in softies and sps and my lps are splitting as well. I can't 100% say it's because of the skimmer but it does seem odd it all happened around the same time

To help get a better idea of what's going on with our reef systems here's some reading material. (This material will be on your semester final )

"Coral Reefs in the Microbial Seas" by Forest Rohwer. Best place to start to get a better understanding of microbes and DOC.

Feldman, et al, has a verygood series of papers published on Advanced Aquarist (the first part of the articles is describing the modeling process which is very dry and I've just skipped over but if you like statistics and mathmatical modeling . . . I know a good therapist)

Bacterial Counts in Reef Aquarium Water
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2011/3/aafeature

Granular Activated Carbon Pt 1
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/1/aafeature1

Granular Activated Carbon Pt 2
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/2/aafeature1

Total Organic Carbon Pt 1
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/8/aafeature3

Total Organic Carbon Pt 2
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/9/aafeature2

Protein Skimmer Performance, Pt 1
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2009/1/aafeature2

Protein Skimmer Performance, Pt 2
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2010/1/aafeature

Skimmate Analysis
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2010/2/aafeature

[Timfish]

Originally Posted by vikinglord13

Wow, nice looking tank. I've always been told skimmerless systems were only possible on smaller tank, yet, here you have a larger tank that is successfully kept as skimmerless. Thank you for posting. It's nice seeing skimmerless success over a long period of time on such a large tank - motivational actually. . .

Thank you very much!

It's sad you were told that as Dr. Jaubert (building it seems to me, on Lee Chin Eng's methods) demonstrated in the '80s large reef systems could do very well and grow many stoney coral species without pumps, skimmers, GAC, certainly not GFO and without water changes for years. Using, like Lee Chin Eng, just air bubbles for water movement. The caveot I would add now is with what I've read about the role of DOC, which can be divided loosely divided into labile, semi labile and refractory forms, the best way to control the refractory forms is with water changes. See the links in post in #18 above for a better explanation of the roles DOC plays on reefs. Delbeek and Sprung have written about Lee Chin Eng and Dr. Jubert's skimmerless systems in FAMA as well as in their books so it sounds to me as whoever told you that was very poorly read or just stuck in their dogma.

(I think it's noteworthy to point out Sprung's system which has a couple video's on line has been skimmerless since the late '90s. Also, the two oldest corals farmers started in the 90's, Tropicorum in Detroit and Steve Tyree here in Texas stopped using skimmers in the mid-late '90s. Tyree's stuff on ecomorphology is a good place to start with understanding cryptic sumps and predicted the vital roles of sponges proven by Jasper de Goeij's work 10 years ago)

Originally Posted by vikinglord13

. . .It doesn't look like you have too heavy of a bioload (which is what I would expect with a skimmerless system). Looks like you have a very nice balance. . .

It is a bit on the light side but not because I'm running skimmerless. Corals are much better at dealing with the metabolic waste produced by fish than skimmers are. Current fish include Regal, Naso and Blonde Naso all about 7"-9" long depending on whether you use standard length or total length. Purple Tang (actually older than this system but was rehomed from another system last year), Coral Beauty, Flame Hawk and some damsels. The main reason I maintain lighter fish loads is if there is some kind of failure particularly if there is a long term power failure or AC failure the heavier a system is stocked with fish the quicker animals will start to die off.

(As an aside, there are good battery backup systems designed for aquaria but I really like Penn Plax's air pump that turns on only after power is lost. I have several and they all run at least 4 days with just 2 D cell batteries. There are models by other manufacturers some are ok but one that has a "W" or wave logo molded on top only will turn on about a third of the time. I would not use an UPS designed for electronic equipment, irregardless of the load they will only run an hour or so.)

Originally Posted by vikinglord13

I must say, given I'm battling a GHA outbreak due to phosphate leaking from my rocks, I'm astounded you have such a clean tank having no filtration. Mine is skimmerless as well, but man. One of these days I hope my tank will be clean like that.

I'm curious if you would think of your problem differently if you knew PO4 levels on reefs on average are .13 mg/l. That only a tiny fraction of reefs have PO4 levels below .05 mg/l. That open ocean surface levels of PO4 away from reefs can be ~.4 mg/l (+/- ~.2) which argues corals are depleting PO4 in the waters surrounding reefs. That reefs at any time may be exposed to PO4 levels of as much as 2 mg/l with upwellings. That PO4 is as essential for photosynthesis in corals as bicarbonate (you've been taught to keep alkalinity above a certain point why not PO4?). That controlled studies of PO4 on the growth of corals shows increasing PO4 increases growth? (It does reduce calcification as well as nitrate above 1 mg/l.) That when a corals internal PO4 level drops to around .07 mg/l it may cause it's zooxanthellae to make sulpher compounds that are toxic to the coral? That all calcium carbonate substrates will be slowly dissolving due to localized low pH and bioeroders releasing PO4 in all systems employing them? That all food has PO4 that's being released into the system?

What has worked for me for a couple decades now when I'm called in to remediate a tank is frequent manual removal and short spine urchins, the royal and tuxedo are my favorites.

[Timfish]

Originally Posted by tkeracer619

Looks great!

Originally Posted by boxfishpooalot

Nice tank! All those softies look great. . . .

Thank you both!

Originally Posted by boxfishpooalot

What do you feed the fish?
NLS Algaemax in an autofeeder set for a max of 8 times a day and totaling, I'm guessing, 3-4 grams a day (multiply by 6 or 7 to account for the water in frozen food).
Do you do water changes?
Weekly 7%-8%, salinity of new slatwater varies between 1.010 and 1.025 depending on evaporation (no ato).
What kind of lighting?
2 years ago I swithcthed from T5s to BML LED light bars. I've started to add more acros, montis and birdsnest and added a couple more cheap Chinese 55 watt light bars at the back of the tank to get better color development. (Found them on Amazon, their advertised as 80 watt but the current output of the driver makes them just 55 watts.)
Is the air bubbler and return pump the only water movement?
There are two old cheap power heads that are plugged into a power strip with a rheostat that alternates them on and off
Do you run any carbon/po4 remover?
Sometimes, I'll get a picture of the homemade container I use
How deep is your sandbed? What is the average grain size of your sand? Well, at one time it was CaribSea's Pink Fiji Live Sand and it varies between almost nothing and 1"+. Between live rock and sand getting broken down by bioeroders and other types getting mixed in on occasion I would have to say grain size is anywhere from really really small to 1/8" with what I would consider gravel sizes randomly mixed in
How much algae grows in the tank/glass?
On a weekly basis a thin film forms on the glass. Standing 6 feet away it would not appear to obstruct the view much but up close it's more noticeable but small details can still be made out at the back of the tank. As far as the rest of the tank there's always going to be either corals, algae or sponges. Outside of the occasional spots of cyano I don't remember having any major nuisance algae issues since initial cycling.

[Timfish]

Originally Posted by A sea K

How do your mushrooms respond when alk gets near the upper end of your 5-10dkh range? I let my alk slip pretty low and have started to bring it up slowly(6.4 to 6.8 in 10 days) and my mushrooms have begun to show a negative effect.

I would say you have some other problem. My alkalinity jumps around a lot and they don't mind. Now that I've added more lights to increase the variety of corals I can grow the ones up high have shown some bleaching and are jumping off.

[A sea K]

Lighting may be a possibility. They have been under a different brand LED for a month now, just slow to react I imagine.

[jstack]

great looking tank!!! I have to lay down now my head is hurting too much learning going on in here for my taste

[Mishri]

softies will take up a lot of the nutrients that skimmers will remove. I 100% agree you shouldn't run skimmers on tanks with mostly softies. If you have an SPS dominated tank though, you'll probably need one for nutrient extraction. (I turned off the skimmer on my 40 breeder a while ago because i've got filter feeders and gorgonians in it).. I think I ran the skimmer for about 2 months is all.

[marinelife]

I have always found that softies do better in a skimmerless tank, I had skimmerless but was bitten in the butt when phosphates started leaching back out of the rock.