[Reinhold]

I tried to go skimmerless while I waited for a replacement for my broken skimmer. I had caulerpa in an enclosure in the tank. Now I have 1/2 inch of red slime sand!

I started my new skimmer and immediately pulled out a huge amount of very dark skimmate. I'll stick with a protein skimmer. Now I have to figure out what to do about the red slime.

[npaden]

Reinhold,
Generally people who are serious about going skimmerless plan their setups very thoroughly especially the nutrient export mechanisms. I would be curious as to the size of the enclosure in your tank that had the caulerpa in it and how much it grew during the period in question.
I have a separate tank set up for my macroalgae to grow in and I generally harvest 1 to 2 pounds of macroalgae every couple of weeks. And I am not skimmerless, just running a slightly underpowered skimmer for the size of my system.
There are many people running successful tanks with and without skimmers. If you really want to go skimmerless I'm sure there are people that could help you design your nutrient export mechanism to handle your tank. Often this involves a separate tank or chamber with macro or turf algae with an intentional regular harvest of the algae for disposal. This removes basically the same stuff the skimmer would but in a different manner.
FWIW, Nathan

[Aragorn]

Reinhold,

Npaden makes some good points. Typically, once a decision is made to go "skimmerless" it takes a little design, and time. A couple of more things I'd like to add is that for a sump/refugium to operate efficiently one needs to make sure there is good flow "through" the caulerpa bed. Additionally, one typically implements a DSB along with additional LR. I, for one, take "rubble rock" and pile it close to where the water flows into the refugium. This allows for all the water to flow through the LR into the main refugium where detritus will settle and be consumed by pods and other critters within the DSB. The caulerpa will extract any additional nitrates while the water travels through. FWIW

[Smitty91]

Reinhold

In addition to the good points already made:

One other thing to keep in mind. When you remove a vital part of filtration from a tank cold turkey style (aka skimmer broke), one should expect dramatic things to happen. Removing a skimmer on an established system can be done successfully, but it usually entails weaning your tank of the skimmer. Also, one would have to change husbandry practices with only 1/2" sandbed without a skimmer.

The best way, IMO, to run a skimmerless tank (from all of the different folks I've talked to) is to set the tank up skimmerless from the getgo.

If the skimmer you are using is the same as the broken one and running it has always prevented red slime before breaking, running the new one should make it go away. (don't know this from experience, only what I've read from skimmer claims)

These are the most recent pics of my skimmerless 90. It took some time to get here and a balance had to be found. But, clearly, skimmerless is possible for those that really wish to venture down this path.

Smitty

[scubadude]

I totally agree to all of the above....a system needs to be slowly weaned into skimmerless, and it should be very mature!!! My system is coming up on a year old now almost....and I have had my refugium for almost 8 mos. now......for the past 4mos. I have had 0nitrates,trites,ammonia and I feed my tank like its a small starving ethiopian village I can literally notice the tank's Skimmer pulling less and less stuff out......I think this can be used as a good indication when you are ready (sometimes)