SPS Skimerless Tanks

Discussion in 'SPS Corals' started by Pankak322, Jun 5, 2013.

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  1. weems23

    weems23 Astrea Snail

    Joined:
    Sep 16, 2011
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    I run a 20 gallon refugium and algae scrubber on a 40g breeder with a number of acropora and other sps. I do a two 5g water changes a month and get really good growth on all my stony corals, but very little growth on many of my soft corals. I assume its because of the very low nutrient levels. My bio-load is pretty large with coral and fish. I tried running without the algae scrubber for the last two months and it worked, but some macro algae's started slowly growing in my tank so I'm running it again. I think element depletion is the biggest problem, but lots of crushed live rock in the refugium and occasional amino acid dose seems to keep the element supply in check for me.
     
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  3. Daniel072

    Daniel072 Giant Squid

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    May 30, 2008
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    Very tough to do an SPS tank without a skimmer, long term. It will do fine for a while because, believe it or not, your live rock will absorb some of the phosphate in the water. After a while, though, that rock will start leaching those phosphates and then you end up with nasty stuff. It's no accident that the protein skimmer came about, right about the same time we were able to successfully start keeping acropora.

    Editing because there are folks with smaller tanks who are super diligent with their water changes that are able to do it very successfully.
     
  4. johnnymoua_09

    johnnymoua_09 Astrea Snail

    Joined:
    Jan 7, 2010
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    I once had a 75gal reef where my ASM skimmer broke and I built an algae scrubber for it and everything was fine for 5-6months before I put another skimmer online. In that time the corals grew well as if nothing had changed. I grew a frags of deep water table acros in it.
     
  5. weems23

    weems23 Astrea Snail

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    Sep 16, 2011
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    61
    Mine has been running for 4 years and half off the live rock is much older. Never had a problem and I seem to be able to experiment with filtration and water chemistry a lot without causing problems. The live rock does start to release nutrients, but the algae soaks up everything so quickly that is basically doesn't matter for my set up. The algae acts as a ridiculous nutrient buffer. The live rock also releases tiny amounts of trace and major elements as it breaks down over time. Mine has run for 6 months without a water change and growth continued, but did slow down. I'm trying to build a bigger sps tank designed just for this now because its cheap as hell to run. I'm pretty sure with the right balance of algae, live rock, and refugium design, a tank can run perfectly with sps and very few water changes.
     
  6. Blue Falcon

    Blue Falcon Fire Goby

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    Jun 18, 2009
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    i run a 75g mixed reef with an ATS only. Tank is doing well but the only sps i have is some monties and birdsnest. I decided to take my skimmer offline because I wanted stuff floating around in my water column. But for most people I recommend running a skimmer. You should look into the miracle mud system for your refugium. Refugiums are not as efficient at nutrient removal as a turf scrubber. I dont think you will find many people running a refugium only (even less than people who run an ATS only). I would leave your skimmer plugged in if I were you. If its working, dont mess around with it. Also, i wouldnt recommend not doing water changes like some people seem to brag about. Just because you dont have nutrients doesnt mean you dont have to do a water change. Water changes replace vital trace emelents that we cannot test for. Just because everything "looks" ok doesnt mean their corals are as happy as they could be.

    just my .02