Sps colors

[robs.mark]

Hey guys, just wanted to share an experience with you..

I work in the mining industry, and I'm away for 8 days at a time every two weeks. I've got a new build in the works and on my local club forum I had an opportunity to swap my skimz sk 181 for a huge reef octopus skimmer, I had to do it straight away as the guy needed a skimmer for his new tank. my current tank has been running for a couple of years and is pretty stable so I thought with a few extra water changes I could get away skimmer less for a couple of months, I have a fuge and plenty of live rock, with a low bio load. I should also add that my tank has most of my corals on frag racks ready for the new build so flow is very good.

Now, I had the opportunity to buy a beautiful hybrid yellow tang two weeks back, and was a little reluctant as the tank was skimmer less, but as i mentioned the new system would be up and running soon so I went ahead and bought him thinking if I do loose any color to high nutrients i would eventually get them back in the new system.

Today I returned from the mine and wow I have never seem my corals look so good! Blues are amazing and greens look so vibrant, I have never been able to achieve this before. I haven't tested parameters but before I left trates were 0 and p04 was 0.06. I'm sure they would be higher now though as my wife has been over feeding trying to get the tang eating.

Has anybody else had this experience without using a skimmer?

Mark.

[Chris Lakies]

How large is your tank? Also tangs poop a lot lol.

[javajaws]

In general, if you "lack color" (not brown...but just light colors) you probably don't have enough fertilizer (phosphates/nitrates) going through the system. As you have discovered adding fish can help (to a point).

Its funny how people fret over keeping their tank clean, run low nutrients, low bio load, etc. so that they can "keep SPS". SPS are just like flowers...they need nutrients to grow too.

The problems start to come in only when you are adding more than you are using...that's when the skimmer, GFO, carbon, etc. come into play. You can spend your time carefully choosing what and how much gets put in the tank...or spend money on getting it out (assuming you are putting too much in). Having an artificial means to take out the excess allows for all sorts of things...laziness, overstocking, etc.

[robs.mark]

How large is your tank? Also tangs poop a lot lol.
Current tank is 90g..

[batt600]

Skimmer remove trace elements and alot of stuff sps need to color up like Iron , potassium stuff like that . What mostr likely happen is one your trates went up a bit and are feeding your sps and theres trace elements and stuff in the tank thay need . Down side it wont stay like that so put a skimmer in there soon or your P04 and N03 get to dangerous levels.

[cubman20]

When i keep more fish the sps color up more

[robs.mark]

Skimmer remove trace elements and alot of stuff sps need to color up like Iron , potassium stuff like that . What mostr likely happen is one your trates went up a bit and are feeding your sps and theres trace elements and stuff in the tank thay need . Down side it wont stay like that so put a skimmer in there soon or your P04 and N03 get to dangerous levels.

With respect, I don't think that's a valid response based on the fact that I revealed very little info about the tank, I have a light bio load, couple of clowns and gobies, the tank is mature, and I have a fuge that grow macro. I change water weekly. Many people successfully grow sps without the use of a skimmer.

The point of this post was to share an experience with you that I observed I'm my reef.

Mark.

[M007]

I have also witnessed that type of reaction, only mine was due to a 2 week skimmer shut down, a real game changer IMHO. :thumbsup: