Skimmer Q

[kimoyo]

I agree with Jackson. With the bioload you have I don't think the remora has skimmed everything out of the tank. There's probably something wrong with it or its not setup correctly.

Try dosing phyto (I like the spray dried stuff, it won't give you phosphate issues like the liquids can.)

Fritz, are you sure about this, where did you hear this from?

I'm not a fan of pushing more water through because it will shorten you contact time. More water isn't necesarily better.

I really think the bubbles in our skimmers get saturated very quickly in our tanks. Its reason why people get larger skimmers and get more skimmate. And its the fundamental reason I believe recirculating needlewheels can never do as well as beckett skimmers in the hobbyist tanks.

 

[thepudge]

I have noticed a big difference with my hang-on fuge, which is about 5 gallons with a DSB and cheato. I guess for a 46 bowfront that is an OK size.

One day I will get a sump and drill, but for the time being I need to save my money for House's corals. Rose Millie > Better Skimmer



Thanks again for your help!

 

[fritz]

fritz, you're wrong with the remora's - pushing more water actually makes the spray injector work better on the remoras - the only problem with Craigs recommendatio (although a good one)....

Yes but Remoras don't have a gate valve on the other side so that extra foam is of no use, it flys right out the other side! Aqua C only recomends using larger pumps on the EV series since they have gate valves and you can fine tune the contact time and thereby the actual throughput of the water. It ends up that you're not actually pushing more water through with a larger pump but running the same amount of water through only with more agitation. To retro fit a remora with even a Mag 5 wouldn't give you more skimmate, in fact I would wager less but certainly more micro bubbles.

My only point was that if you were to hookup Slama's Bubble King to this tank it wouldn't pull out 2 cups of dirty skimmate every single day for the next 2 years. It's a small tank with (more then likely) a small bioload. There just isn't that much to skim as it's only a 46 gallon tank. The MJ1200 pushes 300 GPH through there! I really think that if I hooked up an overflow to his tank and brought my sump and skimmer over I wouldn't get all that much more then his remora gets.

(WE'VE TOTALLY GOT TO TRY THAT!)

Perhaps for the next MR thingy. We should try different skimmers on a large tank and see how they do! Maybe we get someone with a HUGE tank and we put a bunch of skimmers in and compare how they all perform. Hmmmm.

 

[fritz]

Kimoyo,
Haven't heard it just my experience.

I also never meant to imply that anyone has a tank free of DOC. Just that if you have a skimmer that is pulling cups of funk out every day, your skimmer is too small. Assuming that you maintain your skimmer the way you're supposed to it shouldn't pull out all that much everyday. If it is then perhaps you need a bigger skimmer. That's all I'm saying. Perhaps some people like to empty their skimmer cup everyday, I perfer not to have to. When I had my remora I knew I needed a bigger skimmer when it was no longer able to keep up. If it appears the other way around then as Kimoyo said perhaps it's dirty or not setup properly, or perhaps it's working perfectly!

 

[thepudge]

(WE'VE TOTALLY GOT TO TRY THAT!)




:tongue1: My tank is your tank

 

[jackson6745]

Kimoyo,
Haven't heard it just my experience.

if you have a skimmer that is pulling cups of funk out every day, your skimmer is too small. Assuming that you maintain your skimmer the way you're supposed to it shouldn't pull out all that much everyday.

Um Fritz I don't mean to get on your case but

What the freakin hell are you talking about!!!!

Think of it this way. Running a remora dry will produce let's say about 4-6oz dark skimmate per day. If you ran a larger skimmer like a deltec apf600 you would get about 8oz + dark skimmate per day on the same system. That doesn't mean that the deltec is too small for the system, it means that it is skimmer better than the remora, which doesn't necessarily mean that it is skimming enough. Only testing your nitrates + phosphates and obeservation of problematic algaes will tell you if any skimmer is skimming enough.
If you ran different skimmers on the same system, the skimmer that pulls out the most crap is working best, not least. Am I making sense?

 

[fritz]

Um Fritz I don't mean to get on your case but

What the freakin hell are you talking about!!!!

Think of it this way. Running a remora dry will produce let's say about 4-6oz dark skimmate per day. If you ran a larger skimmer like a deltec apf600 you would get about 8oz + dark skimmate per day on the same system. That doesn't mean that the deltec is too small for the system, it means that it is skimmer better than the remora, which doesn't necessarily mean that it is skimming enough. Only testing your nitrates + phosphates and obeservation of problematic algaes will tell you if any skimmer is skimming enough.
If you ran different skimmers on the same system, the skimmer that pulls out the most crap is working best, not least. Am I making sense?

Of course you are, I agree 100%. I'm not talking about a trial run though and I'm not speaking in a let's compare a deltec vs. a seaclone or a remora. I'm saying that quality skimmers are going to pull comparable skimmate out of the same system (OVER TIME.) A Bubble King on this system will pull cups of gunk out (once dialed in) for a few days and then it will hit the baseline and it will pull out only what's there. That doesn't mean he needs to go get a bigger Bubble King.

In my opinion running a remora with a MJ1200 on a 46 gallon tank is doing quite well. Clean your injector do proper maintenance. If you're only getting a little bit of skimmate then you have a light bioload. If you don't feel like a "real" reefer unless you have cups of dark skimmate then start over feeding your fish.

Most people on this site seem to have the same methodology to reef keeping. You must have a bigger skimmer, you must have MH lights, you need sick flow. BBs rock, etc. What's cool about some of the other forums is that different things are embraced. Perhaps he's not getting a lot of skimmate because he has a light bioload! Really what's the big deal about that? No one even brought that up, they just recomended bigger skimmers. I love my ASM, I'd love to get an even bigger skimmer but that's because I'm a fool. In reality I don't need one. My corals are doing great and I'm not pulling lots of funk out anymore not becuase my skimmer stopped working or because I need a bigger skimmer but because it pulled out the funk that was in there.

Also I've never ever heard anything about skimmers pulling out phosphates I can't imagine how they could. Do you have any articles or anything about it? I'd be interested on reading up about it. There's always new breakthroughs in this hobby and often we find that we were all very wrong about things which is kind of what makes it cool.

 

[cali_reef]

Fritz, bigger is better..
I can pull two to three cups of skimmet out of my system everyday, heck I used to pull almost a gallon of pretty nasty stuff out with my Barr. You'll never run out of DOC or crap to skim out if you have some bio load and feed your fish. Your idea of initial heavy skimming and later not pulling stuff would only apply if you don't add additional DOC or the bio load is not producing waste.

I think the Aqua C will work okay in his system, but something like a Deltec HOB skimmer will probably work better. A mag 3 upgrade (if he can fit one on) will improve the skimming power in the spray foam skimmer, the maxi jet is too wimpy when comes to pressure applications.

 

[digitalreefer]

Ever notice that if the word skimmer appears in a thread title, the thread explodes!

I think what Fred is saying is that if a skimmer slows down over time, that it's pulled most of the gunk that it (this particular skimmer) can from the tank. This is not to say a bigger one won't pull more out, but to say if what you have ain't broke, there's no immediate need to fix it.

 

[alrha]

i think to clarify here:

Fred (fritz) is trying to say that a skimmer may start off skimming a lot till it comes to some sort of equilibrium at which point it can only skim as much DOCs as is added to the system.

Rich (jackson) is trying to say that a more aggressive skimmer can still pull out more in the same system simply due to it's aggresiveness and ability to extract those DOCs that a less agressive skimmer simply can not reach.

I think it is just a matter of efficiency. A poor skimmer may only be able to remove say a saturation of 50% DOC while a better skimmer may be able to remove down to say 25% DOC (these are just figurative numbers).

Say i start my tank off with no skimmer and the water is fully saturated with DOCs (lets call this 100%). A poor skimmer will be able to fill up a cup of skimmate everyday till the water is down to 50% saturation. At that point, if the DOC concentration increases by say 5% a day (due to feeding, etc) then that skimmer will only be able to remove that 5% of DOC (half a cup?). Fritz's point here is that there is nothing wrong with the skimmer, but just that it is pulling out its maximum efficiency and the reason it is no longer filling up the cup daily is simply because it can not collect enough DOCs to do so.
The agressive skimmer on the other hand will continue skimming till the DOC concentration is down to 25% at which point it too will only be able to skim what is added (5% / half a cup) above that point.

So would a better skimmer help reduce the DOCs in the tank? yes - because it will be able to skim down to a lower DOC concentration than the poorer skimmer could. Will the better skimmer get more skimmate when one cube of food is added to the tank? well both of the skimmers will just remove the DOCs added by the food till the water is back down to the level at which the skimmer can no longer skim.

Also, a better skimmer would probably be able to get those extra DOCs out faster allowing less time for them to be in the system where the algae etc get to enjoy them.

Just for the record, i made all this up, so it's not to be taken as fact, just a theory that those higher up on the food chain can rip apart.

 

[thepudge]

Alhra - you are very wise. Now please tell the kenya tree frag I bought from you to stop dropping babies all over my tank.

 

[alrha]

oh, i forgot to tell you that i get to collect royalties from all the offspring.
once the steroids wear off it should slow down.

 

[fritz]

Thanks Albert, well stated.

 

[House of Laughter]

A mag 3 upgrade (if he can fit one on) will improve the skimming power in the spray foam skimmer, the maxi jet is too wimpy when comes to pressure applications.

Amen to that!!

Fred, with the remora, the spray injector applies back pressure to the pumps, so a maxijet does NOT push 300gph through there - the mag drives have a higher GPH rating under pressure (although not pressure rated) and you'll get more skimmate as well as more flow out of the skimmer - Remora even recommends the Mag3 upgrade to their vendors who are selling them. Just an FYI

My rule of thumb has always been to get a skimmer for my system based on 25% higher than my water column. Since I am not a believer of raping my water of nutrients by skimming them out, I like to use this rule (well more like a guess) based on my habits, load preferences and feeding habits. I prefer a mixed reef and have NEVER target fed my LPS, or acans etc. I also feed my fish (ALOT) and see that result in my skimmer the next day.

For example - I had a Remora Pro on my 92g Bowfront - the Pro with Mag 3 upgrade is rated for 120g. ~ 25% and that tank was off the hook with growth, colors and general health.

My 180 has a total water column of 245 and my Lifereef is rated at 300g (this sin't 25%, but close enough) and my growth is out of control, and my colors, well, thay speak for themselves.

Yes if he had a a better hang on skimmer he would see more skimmate, but, with my example, does he need that much skimmer? Deltecs etc?

I would think skimming a little more will allow a little more bio load and provide clearer healthier water - for that i would recommend the Archipelago or the Remora Pro.

JMO

House

 

[Craig]

House and Cali are right on the money.

Steve Prince
Customer Service Manager
AquaC, Inc.
858-689-1121 phone
858-564-3419 fax

I'm in the process of upgrading to an Urchin Pro, so I've asked this guy just about every question on the remora/urchin that you could think of. Give him a buzz and he'll confirm that a mag3 is the way to go.

 

[cali_reef]

i think to clarify here:

Fred (fritz) is trying to say that a skimmer may start off skimming a lot till it comes to some sort of equilibrium at which point it can only skim as much DOCs as is added to the system.

Rich (jackson) is trying to say that a more aggressive skimmer can still pull out more in the same system simply due to it's aggresiveness and ability to extract those DOCs that a less agressive skimmer simply can not reach.

I think it is just a matter of efficiency. A poor skimmer may only be able to remove say a saturation of 50% DOC while a better skimmer may be able to remove down to say 25% DOC (these are just figurative numbers).

Say i start my tank off with no skimmer and the water is fully saturated with DOCs (lets call this 100%). A poor skimmer will be able to fill up a cup of skimmate everyday till the water is down to 50% saturation. At that point, if the DOC concentration increases by say 5% a day (due to feeding, etc) then that skimmer will only be able to remove that 5% of DOC (half a cup?). Fritz's point here is that there is nothing wrong with the skimmer, but just that it is pulling out its maximum efficiency and the reason it is no longer filling up the cup daily is simply because it can not collect enough DOCs to do so.
The agressive skimmer on the other hand will continue skimming till the DOC concentration is down to 25% at which point it too will only be able to skim what is added (5% / half a cup) above that point.

So would a better skimmer help reduce the DOCs in the tank? yes - because it will be able to skim down to a lower DOC concentration than the poorer skimmer could. Will the better skimmer get more skimmate when one cube of food is added to the tank? well both of the skimmers will just remove the DOCs added by the food till the water is back down to the level at which the skimmer can no longer skim.

Also, a better skimmer would probably be able to get those extra DOCs out faster allowing less time for them to be in the system where the algae etc get to enjoy them.

Just for the record, i made all this up, so it's not to be taken as fact, just a theory that those higher up on the food chain can rip apart.

Albert, I agree with your theory above. I think my tanks are still at the 75% level even with all the big skimmers I have.

 

[kimoyo]

I think we need a better understanding of what skimmers do, what they take out and what low nutrients is. There are no tanks on this board that really have low nutrients, period. Its just not possible to come close to oligotrophic levels in our closed systems for a bunch of reasons, namely biodiversity. These guys are probably coming close,



but they have this tank plumbed into the ocean, literally.

Because skimmers get nutrients (phosphates, nitrates) indirectly, they will never get everything out of a tank. They are dependant on things flowing thru them that are skimmable. A deltec is going to pull around the same as a similar sized bk. The difference comes in methods of skimming and sizes, the bubbles and water don't change, its the processing rate that changes.

When someone says this skimmer is more aggresive than that skimmer or that bk is better than this deltec, I'm not sure what they mean. When people said the elos or the tunze is a less aggressive skimmer I was like :scratchch. A bigger skimmer will only processes the water faster and some of us use that to attempt to keep up with food additions in a losing battle. Given time and no further feedings a smaller skimmer can process the water to the same general point (which isn't close to everything). But we need to add nutrients (which will always be more than any skimmer can take out) on a constant basis to keep our livestock alive, so a faster processing rate can be helpful. There's a point where a faster processing rate won't help (because of skimming limitations) but a remora ain't it .