skimmer

[MizTanks]

I personally believe if your going to have fish in a tank running a skimmer is good idea,Regardless of tank size.Skimmrs will help you maintan good water parameters in a very small water volume.Yes you can do without one but it will help reduce the number of those difficult times all reefers go thru.IMHO

What difficult times are we talking about here? Aside from the ones that regular water changes won't take care of.

[binford4000]

What difficult times are we talking about here? Aside from the ones that regular water changes won't take care of.

Human nature definetly is a top one for sure.Also to be considered is the accumalation of fecral matter that remains in the sand bed that your water change's and clean up crew miss.This waste will breakdown but eventually it will catch up to it's limited enviroment and with nowhere to go can cause issues such as amonia spikes or No3 raised levels or algae issues such as red slim and so on.Doing water changes is important but too many or to big can also create an unwanted cycle too.Like I said you can get away from useing a skimmer no doubt about it. but some consideration has to be used if you decied to go that route.The tropicorium has never used them but their vats hold thousands of pound of live rock and are constructed basicly like a giant under ground filter also they do SUPER HUGE water changes and tanks that host fish atleast have an old school underground filter system which pulls the waste into a designed area for bacteria to consume the waste.If I was going to run a tank without a skimmer I would be very careful to not have fish and a small bio load of coral.Understand this is just my opinon tho.Back when we first started this hobby skimmers where not used but also are the direct result of trying to resolve issues that limited waste exportation creates.Like your question said:can you run a tank without a skimmer?? YES you can! My questions is why would you?, unless hauling water is part of your daily workout and you enjoy makeing things harder on yourself and your tank inhabitants.Your tank looks fantastic so whatever your doing is working just fine.I just believe whole hartedly that a skimmer would allow your great looking tank to stay that way for a much longer time.This means your corals would get even bigger then they have and you will be forced to upgrade in which case you will have to use a skimmer and this conversation will be null and void. LOL Hmmm???? Mizs 240 has a nice ring to it doesn't it?