do skimmers remove phosphate

[ocean rock]

do skimmers remove phosphate ?

[SantaMonica]

No

[Vannpytt]

Skimmers remove proteins and particles. Primary food in a reef system.

[dota]

if PS that bad to reef system... but why most success tank use them..? i personally stop using skimmer few months ago.. well, my tank FOWLR

i dont use PS coz, i use the PH for my ATS :D. not because i dont like skimmer hehe

[Vannpytt]

First of all, the neon lazer showtanks you see alot of are far from natural. That beeing said, some of them are indeed pretty. Reason why most of the good tanks out there, and I say good as in husbandry skills, is because they are adding most of the food the ATS would provide for the corals manually, if at all. Funny thing is, that most of these good established tanks has measurable nitrates and phosphates. Trust me, I've read most of the TOTM reefcentral posts. Especially remember a TOTM with non photosynthetic corals, and the owner claimed he always had nitrate values because of the heavy feeding and his traditional system failed to take everything out. Also, they clean and "polish" the water before most of those pictures are taken, but yeah. They are good at "gardening" their tanks.

[SantaMonica]

Also remember that most PS tanks get old tank syndrome, due (probably) to build up of metals which skimmers do not remove.

Also also, they have lots of money in equipment, which takes space, time, and effort to run. And they still can't keep non-photo corals without target feeding.

Also also also, they were started before August 2008, which is when modern scrubbers were discovered. So they had no other option at the time.