when doing a reef tank?

[joshl]

do you have to use a skimmer?

i have a biowheel system now
let me know what you think

 

[dakota9]

If you do enough water changes it cool, which would require a small system to change out enough water to make a difference, you can go w/o one

 

[dmahoney82]

Also depends on your bio-load

 

[xyzpdq0121]

We ran tanks for years before the advent and wide spread usage of skimmers. It can be done. IMHO, you will not really be able to care for SPS corals. One of the reasons we can now is because of the technology that has come along in filtration and skimming. Also, if you are going to go skimmerless and want a reef tank, you can not just it half-way. The system needs to be planned out around not having a skimmer. You need to have a large amount of LR, good bio-load, good clean up crew, etc. Also, there are downsides to using that bio-wheel, make sure you know about them.

But short answer is that it can be done!

 

[joshl]

cool thanks i have a skimmer but it is a coralife super skimmer 125 and i keep reading about them overflowing and dont want that because i just put hardwood floors in

 

[stickx911]

I run 2 emperors (bio-wheels), but I also have less live rock than normal, so the bio wheels IMO are not overdoing it. These are on a softie reef that is almost always in good shape (except ph which is alil low most of the time).

It can be done, but I feel like I should have planned better as my system just does not have room for a skimmer.

 

[joshl]

i have one biowheel filter and 50lbs of ls and 40lbs of lr but i am going to get more lr

 

[stickx911]

what size tank?

 

[derek_s]

You can also check out nano-reef.com


I think there are many people there running skimmerless tanks (especially nanos) that can give you lots of pointers.

But the basic concept is simple, you just have to remove the same nutrients as you add to the system, so biological filtration, waterchanges, and good housekeeping will be the keys to your success.

I would agree with Ares, the biowheels will probably not benefit you over the live rock and substrate. I would remove them and just use the HOBs for housing bags of carbon, purigen, or other medias.

Keeping an eye on your parameters will help you decide what you need to adjust for a successful non-skimmed tank.

 

[derek_s]

FYI there are a lot of various HOB skimmers on the market that might be better quality than the Coralife, so if you do want a skimmer maybe check out the Aqua C Remora series, Red Sea Prizm, or similar.

 

[joshl]

will it hurt anything to just leave the biowheel in teh filter?

 

[joshl]

ok it is a 50 gallon tank, with 50 lbs of live sand, almost 40lbs of lr but i will be getting more live rock soon with a biowheel filter on the back and my water readings are all 0ppm and my ph is 8.4 and stays steady i have 4 fish right now and 5 crabs and 1 anemone
i have a coralife 265 watt pc light
what do i need to do about my filters then?

 

[lees]

+1 to ares and Derek

 

[joshl]

ok cool

 

[xyzpdq0121]

joshl;310972 wrote: will it hurt anything to just leave the biowheel in teh filter?

By design, a biowheel on a system will raise the NO3 in the tank, much in the same way bio-balls do. Just the way they work. They are great for turning NO2 into NO3 but then you have a NO3 problem. So I would take off the bio-wheel and just use the mechanical filtration of the pads.

 

[joshl]

ok i will do that then

 

[xyzpdq0121]

To elaborate a bit... Yes NO3 is better then NO2 but still not good for a reef tank. Now, with that said, I like a bit of NO3 in my tank because I run soft corals and clams, and they need some NO3. If you were running a fish only system, I would say, "Leave the bio-wheel on" but that does not sound like the case. Why skimmers are so much better, they remove the waste so it does not need to be converted. It is the difference between taking the lesser of two evils and removing the problem all together.

 

[joshl]

so with my tank do the skimmer and remove the biowheel? correct?