Skimmer only filtration

[noworries]

Not looking for critiques from 'experts'. Just curious if anyone else has ran a successful reef with just a hob skimmer occasional bag of carbon and 10% h2o changes every few weeks?

 

[mojoreef]

You can run a tank with no skimmer if you wanted you just have to adjust for what your doing. If you are running a system with very little mechanical filtration then you need to adjust your husbandry in order take over for that lack of. So yes you could but you would need to be more vigilant by manually dealing with the detritus/waste and so on that more filtration would take care of for you.

mojo

 

[james734]

I think you'll find a lot of people successful with this method. Even if you look at the elaborate systems with all the bells and whistles. At the core/foundation is a good skimmer and water changes.

 

[IPisces]

If your talking about a reef tank with very little bio-load, such as a softy tank and a very few fish, it is easy enough to do with without skimmer or filter.
Just that the more bio-load, the more often you need to do water changes.
My 3 gal, I have 4 nice colonies of favias, approx 4 lbs of rock, an anemone shrimp, peppermint shrimp and a tiger goby in it. No skimmer, no carbon, just a filter pad, and weekly 25-30% water changes.
I would think that you could easily do an SPS tank, even with a few small fish with a HOB skimmer and filter. Like Mojo said, just have to do water changes a little more often depending on how much you feed the coral and fish.
IMO there is no reason you cant do a full reef system with that equipment.

 

[noworries]

I actually have a 50 gallon cube running with anemone's, lps and a few sps and quite a few fish for nearly a year flourishing with just a hob skimmer heater, two power heads and leds

 

[kpiotrowski]

I have a 120g lightly stocked with fish and a 50 gal macro fuge, and skimmer.....and my last water change was like........... march ( zero measurable nitrates or phospahtes). just sayin its like what everyone has said so far that each tank has diffent needs mostly based on bioload.

 

[aaron1987]

Ran a successful mixed reef with HOB skimming and water changes for years in college - I supplemented with a carbon/gfo reactor but that wasn't required.

 

[colin779]

My 90 does have a sump and the skimmer sits in it, but that skimmer is the only filtration I have on the tank. My 20, and then 29 were the same way, except that they had a HOB skimmer. My 90 has been up and running for 3 years now.