RonTheGuy Posted February 22, 2015 Share Posted February 22, 2015 My first post on arc ..... A week ago I Purchased a 100 gallon acrylic complete with some fish and a life reef wet dry filter and life reef vs3 skimmer. Merged other fish, live rock, and undergravel filters from 55 gallon to 100 Gallon. Chemistry tests good and I am now preparing to connect this to 3 foot Skimmer to the wet dry sump. Question is I found in book I love .. Reef Secrets by Nilsen on page 33 this statement .... "skimmers that are either too small or.too large.can create problems" so I have a perhaps too big skimmer what problems could this cause? Fyi I just signed up at arc will meet you at the February 28th meeting. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reburn Posted February 22, 2015 Share Posted February 22, 2015 Welcome to ARC! The Febuary meeting was cancelled. Mframe said to stay tuned for the March meeting date. You can check this out in the monthly meeting threads. IMO yes you can have too big of a skimmer. This is just my opinion and other would disagree. Short answer is if your skimmer is too big it won't function efficiently and not skim enough if it's too small it won't skim enough. There are many factors such as fish bio load to size of tank, and what corals and kind of system your trying to keep. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimbo662 Posted February 22, 2015 Share Posted February 22, 2015 Also, skimming too much will remove salt water that will be replaced by RO/DI water if you have an ATO set up causing your salinity to change. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RonTheGuy Posted February 22, 2015 Author Share Posted February 22, 2015 I do not know of course but I was thinking I would just run the skimmer part time and adjust by how much skim I see. My concern would by skimming out elements in water that are good for corals by too much skim. Could that happen? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nvrEnuf Posted February 22, 2015 Share Posted February 22, 2015 My answer isn't the most popular by far. But, by now most around here have gotten sdjusted to that fact that it's a perfectly viable method: I don't skim at all. I use solely algal biofiltration; both micro and macro. For the purposes of this thread, my answer is a definite YES. Skimmers remove a lot more than just nitrates, can be difficult to dial in, and can easily (as a matter of fact commonly) be oversized. On top of this, it is an almost common practice to overskim simply because one is overfeeding; a combonation that in my opinion leads to crashes more often than most realize. If I were going to use a skimmer, I wouldn't run one rated for more than 150% and I wouldn't run it 24 hours a day. I have used this method in the past with good effect. My QT currently has a skimmer on it, but I haven't run it in weeks, just water changes and the zoas and shrooms are fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RonTheGuy Posted February 22, 2015 Author Share Posted February 22, 2015 Thanks guys ... I will not be running auto top off a friend had an auto top off fail and kill his fish with fresh water and fill his house with water. Can skimmer unbalance salt elements? Like take some and.leave others? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted February 22, 2015 Share Posted February 22, 2015 I also am one who does not use skimmers. Here's the first system I set up skimmerless in 1997: I would strongly encourage you to read research by Feldman, et al, on GAC, TOC (Total Organic Carbon2), skimmer performance and bacterial counts in reef aquaria: Granular Activated Carbon Pt 1 http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/1/aafeature1 Granular Activated Carbon Pt 1 http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/2/aafeature1 Total Organic Carbon Pt 1 http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/8/aafeature3 Total Organic Carbon Pt 2 http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/9/aafeature2 Protein Skimmer Performance, Pt 1 http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2009/1/aafeature2 Protein Skimmer Performance, Pt 2 http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2010/1/aafeature Skimmate Analysis http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2010/2/aafeatureBacterial Counts in Reef Aquarium Water http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2011/3/aafeature And a book I feel every reef aquarist should read is Forest Rohwer's "Coral Reefs In Microbial Seas" Two of the oldest coral growers I know of stopped using skimming in the '90s (Tropicourium in Detroit and Steve Tyree's Reef Farmers) and Borneman raised the issue of skimming being detrimental over a decade ago in a series or articles on Reef Keeping Myths1. Looking at how it selectively removes certain bacteria and alters the microbial balance in aquaria compared to reefs raises questions that need to be answered. More directly as it only selectively is removing a portion of DOC2 it certainly should not be used in place of water changes as I often hear touted. I also find it fascinating that even though Feldman, et al, developed a couple of metrics which skimmer companies could use to quantify how fast their design removes DOC or a known quantity of a substance from water there still is no metric applied to let people know how one skimmer compares to another like we do lights (PAR, lumens, Color Temerature) or pumps (GPH/LPH, pressure head). In light of the research detailed by Rohwer on the detrimental effect of DOC on the healthy bacteria of a coral's holobiont I'll argue GAC and water changes are far more critical in the long term success of a reef system. It's use in removing nutrients is also questionable. We now have research showing low phosphate levels of .07 mg/l can have a detrimental effect on corals.3 (By the way, Kleypas, et al,4 records an average of .13 mg/l PO4 across almost a thousand reefs and Kingman Island, a pristine reef studied by Rohwer above, had .1 mg/l PO4.) 1) Myth 17 http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-01/eb/index.php 2) DOC (Dissolved Organic Carbon) is a component of TOC, generally TOC is DOC + POC (Particulate Organic Carbon). There are many thousands of compounds that fall under these labels and hopefully in the future there will be test available to the average aquarist but for now even basic tests for TOC are beyond all but the richest aquarists. 3)http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/files/file/Nutrient%20enrichment.pdf 4) http://www.denix.osd.mil/nr/crid/Coral_Reef_Iniative_Database/Human_Effects_files/Kleypas%20et%20al.,%201999.pdf 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RonTheGuy Posted February 23, 2015 Author Share Posted February 23, 2015 Thank you for.the information ... I will be reading those articles Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clark Posted April 25, 2015 Share Posted April 25, 2015 I came across this thread just as I was about to ask for skimmer schedule recommendations. This is interesting discussion. My troubles began last year when nitrates overran my two year old tank (no skimmer, using a can filter) and I lost nearly all of my small population corals while I fumbled around fixing and cleaning up the mess. After the reboot I ditched the can filter because it collected gunk faster than I could easily clean it, making it a net negative to the tank. I now use a very easy to clean DIY trickle filter and a skimmer. My tank has been super clean for five months now: 55 gal, sump, two medium fish, a few softies, a happy BTA, gsp. Yesterday, I just added three more small fish and a few lps/sps. I'm going to feed the reef Coral Frenzy starting today. I also noticed my Mg is waaaay down and I'm suspecting the skimmer. I'm adding Mg back in. I do 5gal water changes once a month. So here's the question: since the skimmer will extract more than gunk, and it interferes with the Coral Frenzy, how should I schedule the skimmer with the feeding? I'm not yet confident to fully let go of the skimmer since it does pull green soup out at a rate of 2 oz a week when run continuously but I"m willing to try using it less. Thanks Clark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted April 25, 2015 Share Posted April 25, 2015 So everything is happy right now and you want to stop running the skimmer? I'd just stick to your regularly scheduled program if it's working. Mg will get uptaken and used so you have to dose it back into the tank, especially if water changes aren't enough to keep levels within appropriate ranges. Just shutoff your skimmer for a couple hours when you feed the frenzy and turn it back on afterwards. You really don't want it lingering in the system or else your start having nutrient issues. I'd go very lightly on the initial feeding of coral frenzy and allow your system to adjust to the new input of nutrients. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted April 25, 2015 Share Posted April 25, 2015 My particular strategy for reef keeping is heavy feeding, heavy export. Just give your system time to adjust to heavier feedings by slowly ramping it up. Also, make sure you have the appropriate systems in plus to efficiently remove the nutrients/excess food as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clark Posted April 26, 2015 Share Posted April 26, 2015 Everything is fine except the drop in Mg. If it's expected that I can keep up with supplements and WCs, I'll keep using it, coordinating with the feeding as you said. Thanks! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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