Water Change long overdue?

[noskimmer]

All, in regards to skimming, I just think it removes a substantial amount of beneficial organisms from the water column, and as I have said before, I would never recommend to anyone not to skim. I have also made the point of saying if you collect the amount of skimmate that has accumulated in your skimmer cups for a week and put it back into your tanks that this would probably be really bad, and I am sure if I skimmed I would get a vast amount of skimmate. My argument is the fact that I don't skim, means that the so called "skimmate" is still in the tank, so I question what actually makes up our skimmate? sure an amount is crap, which if left in there turns to nitrate, but this in turn brings on a new population of organisms which removes it, which of course would not be present if I skimmed. All I know is that even though my water may look crystal clear, at night it is teaming with organisms and they are just the ones I can see with my naked eye when I shine a light. I am talking about clouds of things so small you can barley make out what they are, some are quite obvoiusly tiny crustations of sorts which are water born, maybe plankton. In turn these keep my sand bed clean, remove pollutants and feed my corals, procreate, I have hundreds of feather dusters in my sump, snails, and other things I could not even begin to guess what they are, and they have arrived from nothing, corals appearing, spawning, I can chuck large amounts of waste food like fish bones left over sushi, oysters, abalone (the bottom close up picture of Mark he is picking on a whole abalone, that was yesterday, now, this morning only the shell remains).

So in summary, in my tank I don't skim, but that may only be possible for similar setups. The argument is not whether to have or not to have, it is whether it is appropriate for your type of system.

This is just my account of my setup, there are a thousand success stories of other tanks with skimmers, water changes etc...

 

[Grins]

We could always post that infamous picture of the people frolicking in the fish poo...

Ack, were those not the nastiest things?

 

[noskimmer]

This isn't the best video, in fact this was a while ago now, it is a lot more diverse now, If you have difficulty seeing it (it should be about 1:30sec), you may need to save it to your pc before viewing. When I used to skim these guys didn't exist

http://users.tpg.com.au/nickpapa//movie.mpg

 

[kcress]

noskimmer; I commend your attitude! Over at RK there are so many heavies that just land on you, especially the no-refuge, no-sand, guys. It's sad. So your take on this great hobby is nice.
Thanks.

I see the same thing in my tank at night. It is a wild par Tee in there with things corkscrewing thru the water, worms swimming all over. Most incredible.

No skimmer.

 

[Riverserver]

Wow man glad to see your tank is still doing so well!

 

[mcsassy]

How many gallons is your tank? Mine is 72 This makes me quite relieved being that my tank is a month and a half old and i have it stocked with 20+ organisms and immaculate water conditions without having done a single water change yet...i thought i have been really lucky with the things i have been doing to take care of it but i guess i am doing the right things and i am very glad to hear your story! We rule! I probably owe it to my nitrate sponge and cleaning crew though...and i do monitor and take care of every little problem as well but still...yay.

 

[noskimmer]

Here goes, hope the sums are ok. Display is 4x2x2 which makes it same as yours 72, sump (this is in mm) 500x600x1000 which is about 44Gallons, total being 116. But you need to drop the level in the sump (and each stage in the sump is a different level) and tank, about 120kg (264lbs) of live rock (very porous and it's weighed when its wet, so a large proportion of weight is actually water anyway) who knows how much aragonite.. about 60kg (132lbs) in sump (at least) and 20 (44lbs)in display.. don't know how to calc the displacement of this would have on the water volume, then you got the coral.. and this is just all really rough estimates. If you look at the amount of aragonite which has dissolved from when I topped it up in the pictures above, it's quite a bit, so you would really never know.

Of course volume is a major factor ppm is smaller in larger volumes so to say, a better way to say it is if a fish died and went unnoticed in a 10Gallon tank the same amount of toxin would be released if it dies in a 400gallon tank, but as ppm is proportionate to volume, a larger volume is more stable, not to also mention that salinity, ph, temp, and everything else takes a lot longer to change in large volumes, that's why I think that people who can keep nano's successfully are a lot more skilled than the guys with the big tanks.

Also, remember your tank is early days also and yes a big yay for the parameters being very good with no WC, and I wish you the best of luck.

 

[mcsassy]

Ya it is in the very early days and I am also in the middle of medicating the tank for an ich breakout so i had to take out ALL my filter media...i am still upkeeping perfect water parameters in the meantime...i feel quite accomplished...knock on wood!

 

[Angel 0249]

What an amazing thread.
Hats off to you noskimmer.:thumbsup:

 

[JohnLin]

water change to remove nitrate in an established reef tank -- over-rated!

water change to replenish trace elements and dilute the hormones that fish produce to detect the physical volume body of water surrounding them -- under-rated!