While we are all striving to replica nature and work towards more natural settings for our watery pets, I still strongly advocate the use of protein skimming to help maintain proper water quality for our aquariums. Some may find this statement at odds (the word "natural", with a man-made device such as the protein skimmer), but protein skimming is a perfectly complimentary strategy for replicating a process of the natural world in the entirely unnatural confines of an aquarium. Specifically, the dynamic process in either environment exports significant amounts of organic waste (proteinaceous matter attracted to the bubbles in a skimmer or carried to shore from a reef as sea foam) before it can degrade in the aquatic environment. This is not to say that you cannot succeed without a protein skimmer, but it is my belief (and experience has demonstrated time and time again) that more people can and will benefit enormously from employing this technology than those who choose not to employ one. For newer aquarists and systems with heavy bio-loads, a protein skimmer should be considered an indispensable piece of hardware as well as a fundamental investment in a successful aquarium. In a nutshell, if you cannot explain why it is that you don't need a skimmer, then you do need a skimmer! Finding a good and affordable unit is the real challenge.
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