Shut that Skimmer Down! Over skimming your tank.

jasonandsarah

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Cleaning my skimmer right now and on the inside of the cone there's some yucky stuff..... I thought it was build up but it turns out its green algae. Must be some good stuff in there it likes? :)
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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Cleaning my skimmer right now and on the inside of the cone there's some yucky stuff..... I thought it was build up but it turns out its green algae. Must be some good stuff in there it likes? :)

You mean it is growing there?

Does it get much light?
 

ksc

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Cleaning my skimmer right now and on the inside of the cone there's some yucky stuff..... I thought it was build up but it turns out its green algae. Must be some good stuff in there it likes? :)
I'm surprised no one has brought up the fact that skimmers can become a nitrate factory. Would that be considered a chemical reaction?
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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I'm surprised no one has brought up the fact that skimmers can become a nitrate factory. Would that be considered a chemical reaction?

You mean from sludge on the skimmer neck degrading? Yes, that could release nutrients.

But if that same organic matter is just left in the system elsewhere, is it releasing any more (or less?) nutrients when in the skimmer neck than when floating around the tank?
 

Russ265

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I guess I'm like a moth drawn to the flame. I keep coming back.
aside from me acting a smuck last night, i think its a good thread with useful info.

at the end of the day, we are still talking about a glorified bubbler.
 

Diesel

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guys-stop-here.jpg
 

jasonandsarah

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You mean it is growing there?

Does it get much light?
In the spot it was growing it gets a little light from my scrubber.
I'm surprised no one has brought up the fact that skimmers can become a nitrate factory. Would that be considered a chemical reaction?
If it's a No3 factory I wish it'd do a better job. I can't register No3 for the life of me[emoji3]
 

cb684

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Would skimming a water with more doc increase the % of the organic matter in the skimmate? I mean, maybe the percentage of organics in the skimmate is not higher because we are careful in not adding too much organics to the tanks to begin with. With that said, I understand that there is a maximum of organics that a skimmer can remove from the water. Also, isn't some of those inorganic material bound to organic molecules? I understand that some of them actually helps to remove more doc, is that accurate? Would GAC also remove those inorganic molecules we see in the skimmate? Given the amount of solid material I see in my skimmate it appears that I would need a lot more GAC than what I use now. Is that a correct assumption?
 

Pat Clark

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I'm still confused. If you want to skim over feed so the other stuff you can't see has some thing to eat. If you don't want to skim under feed so the things you can't see don't take over the tank..... I'm just a noob who made it to the 3 grade of reef keeping.
 

ksc

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You mean from sludge on the skimmer neck degrading? Yes, that could release nutrients.

But if that same organic matter is just left in the system elsewhere, is it releasing any more (or less?) nutrients when in the skimmer neck than when floating around the tank?

If it's left elsewhere the live rock and sand will do it's job. If it's in the skimmer it is getting plenty of oxygen which would help increase production.
 

ksc

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You mean from sludge on the skimmer neck degrading? Yes, that could release nutrients.

But if that same organic matter is just left in the system elsewhere, is it releasing any more (or less?) nutrients when in the skimmer neck than when floating around the tank?
Plus I employ thousands of these little polyps which eventually convert these nutrients to calcium. Stock it deep, skim it cheap (an airstone creates bubbles for cheap)....

 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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Would skimming a water with more doc increase the % of the organic matter in the skimmate? I mean, maybe the percentage of organics in the skimmate is not higher because we are careful in not adding too much organics to the tanks to begin with. With that said, I understand that there is a maximum of organics that a skimmer can remove from the water. Also, isn't some of those inorganic material bound to organic molecules? I understand that some of them actually helps to remove more doc, is that accurate? Would GAC also remove those inorganic molecules we see in the skimmate? Given the amount of solid material I see in my skimmate it appears that I would need a lot more GAC than what I use now. Is that a correct assumption?

The higher the organic concentration in the water, the more effective will be most methods of removal, including skimming. That can be easily seen in the curves of organic removal over time from a skimmer skimming a fixed concentration of protein in the water. It shows exponential decline, meaning that it gets less effective (say, grams per hour) as the protein concentration drops. This link shows it:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2009/1/aafeature2

All of the inorganic matter removed by skimming will have attached organics, or it wouldn't skim well (except fine GAC particles, which will skim since they are partly hydrophobic already). So fine particles of silica, calcium carbonate, lanthanum phosphate, calcium phosphate, etc. likely are only removed when coated with organics, or inside of something like a diatom. It isn't known what fraction of the organics removed by a skimmer comes attached to inorganic particles. I wouldn't guess its all that much since the surface area of these solids is not high like it is for GAC, but that's just a guess.
 
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