Protein skimmer necessary?

[RyanP][]

Hi all, I'm just wondering if protein skimmers are absolutely necessary. I have a 15 gallon that I plan on turning into a reef. I thought I read somewhere that protein skimmers are bad for smaller tanks because they take out much of the good stuff as well as the bad. Educate me, thanks!

[VoidRaven]

I would suggest that you spend some time in the Nano Reef Forum to get a better answer to your question. However I do have one friend who is starting a 10g nano reef and she is getting a very small skimmer from Coralife that she will be installing in an Aquaclear 500 that will double as a mini-fuge. Skimming will be very helpful, but on a small tank you can get away without it just doing water changes. Skimming is very helpful for keeping the water cleaner and clearer as it removes the excess dissolved nutrients and "bad stuff" for lack of better term.

Check out this link for the "mini-skimmer":
http://www.bigalsonline.com/catalog/product.xml?product_id=22479&category_id=3203&pcid1=

It's called the Coralife Super Skimmer I and it runs about $19.95 plus shipping/handling. www.bigalsonline.com is the only site so far where I've found this product.

But go spend lots of time in the nano forum and you will get a lot of your questions answered.

Best of luck to you and Welcome to RC and to the hobby! (or as I like to call it, the addiction!)

[greenbean36191]

Nope, they aren't. For a 15 gal you might concider a small one, but frequent water changes should do about the same thing. For larger tanks they are more important because it's not practical to change !0% of larger tanks every week.

[jdallred]

I think it really depends on if you plan on having fish, how many fish, and what kind of corals. We have been running a 20gal sps nano for about 1 1/2 yrs with an Aqua C Remora and have been very pleased. The only reason I wanted the Remora on it was because it is an sps tank w/three fish. If it had been a softie tank I would not have gone with the skimmer.