You hear lots of folks say on some forums that a skimmer is not needed
ifyu do weekly or bi monthly water changes. I still do water changes
and run skimmers on my tanks, and water is still nasty.......I can
dump a collection cup of nasty black green skim every day or two...so
I also agree, a skimmer is an important piece of equipment. I have One
high end skimmer, but mainly swing with Coralife SUper skimmers form
most of my tanks and they are decently priced and do a good job. I
tried to bump my high end skimmer ASM ( I think its an ASM anyhow as
its been a while since i fooled with it) up against the coralife to
see how they compare but its hard to do, as having two tanks be
identical is pretty well impossible to accomplish....Heck as long as
its dark, stinks and winds up in the cup I am satisfied they are
doing what needs to be done.

You can take a sample of water form a tank that gets water changes
only and one from a tank with a skimmer and hold those samples up to
daylight . There is a distinct difference in the water between the
two. The water without a skimmer on the tank is a pronounced yellow
tint as compared to the other being clear and colorless.





..On Sun, 14 Jan 2007 01:54:32 +0000, Gill Passman
wrote:

Tristan wrote:

Hmmmm. if that Sanders Picolo skimmer and yellow tinted water grosses
you out, wait until you get a "real" skimmer and get to empty out some
black green junk that would make the contents of a septic tank look
like drinking water.........


Hmmm....but that little Sanders Piccolo skimmer on my dinky 15 gall
along with all the gross water it gathers has totally convinced me that
a protein skimmer is an absolute essential - so in that way it has done
a great job without costing me as much as it might on a larger tank -
now I know when I go out and buy that larger tank (soon) that the
protein skimmer is an absolute essential and I won't baulk at the cost....

Gill



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I forgot more about ponds and koi than I'll ever know!