microbius

please help i am looking into setting up a 24g (uk) saltwater aquarium, with plenty of live rock just 2 fish 1clown and 1dartfish and maybee a few of the easier to care for soft corals like button zoanthids. i have been studying for months now ,but there appears to be a huge question mark over filtration peoples advice seems to revolve around the defence of the very expensive equipment they have brought and not on the actual basic needs of a saltwater setup.
i have a very good internal powerhead 1100 litres per hour 2 compartment filter wich will turn my tank over 11 times an hour the 2 compartments will contain mechanical stage 1 and chemical stage 2 some chemical filtration is said to way outsrip the ability of a skimmer(sorry skimmer fans) of course stage 3 will be the live sand and rock
i will be cleaning the stage 1 weekly to avoid nasty build up will this filtration work with regular maintenance and water changes please help im so confused.............everyones opinions clash

agsansoo

Running a FO (Fish Only) tank without a skimmer is OK. IMO I would not run any other saltwater tank setups without a skimmer. All of that crud in the tank building up day after day, week after week ... I did run my tank without a skimmer in the beginning. After trying one for a few week and seeing all the crud that my mechanical filters couldn't remove. I was convinced. It's all about water quality. Good Luck !

microbius

agsansoo thank you i will purchase a good one then, like you say water quality maters do i still need to use a mechanical filter or will siphoning mulm be suficient as a mechanical filtration. i really want to avoid external filtration if possible

agsansoo

You don't have to have a protein skimmer at startup. You can wait until after to tank cycles (2-10 weeks). Read this about aquarium nitrogen cycle http://www.fishlore.com/NitrogenCycle.htm. As for the mechanical filter ... Not necessary in a reef tank, just live sand, live rock, power heads and a skimmer and you set. If current is about 10-20 times tank volume, you won't need to siphoning mulm off the bottom. The power heads keep the mulm suspended in the water column until the protein skimmer can skim it out.