Skimming a 10

[Cajun]

Skimming a 10gal Nano
Greetings all:
I have a 10gal FOWLR that has been up and running for about a yr now. It has about 14lbs of cultured Gulf rock and a 2" aragonite sand bed. The only occupant at the time is a small maroon clown. It is lit by a 10K 36watt PC. I use a Tetra 20-40 hang on powerfilter with a Piccolo skimmer sitting in the chamber where the filter would normally be installed.
Question? Would it be wise to turn down the flow of the incoming water into the filter or leave it wide open?. Not sure if a slower flow would help my skimmer to be more efficient in removing DOCs.
Thanx
CAJUN

:roll:

 

[2poor2reef]

I am not familiar with the piccolo skimmer? What type of skimmer is it?

Most skimmers force water into the skimmer with a pump. If that is the case then the flow past the pump shouldn't make much difference. However, if the flow you're talking about affects the flow THROUGH the skimmer then that could be a different story.

My guess though is that your skimming is limited by one of two things: either the skimmer is doing the best that it can considering its design or there is only so much doc availble to it. I skim 12-25 g tanks routinely, and with some there is simply not enough organics in the water column to allow the skimmer to pull foam 24X7. It all depends on how high your bioload is, how heavily you feed, and how much doc is taken from the water column by other organisms. My thoughts.

 

[Cajun]

Here is a picture of my skimmer from the mfgrs website..
http://www.aqua-sander.de/text/produkt/ ... odukt.html
Cajun

 

[2poor2reef]

O'kay. It looks like the skimmer is open on the bottom and that's how the water gets into the skimmer column, right?

Then my guess would be that it would probably work slightly better with more flow rather than less. OTOH, with such short dwell time maybe a slower flow would give you (slightly) more dwell time. Although there's not much you can do there.

I would try it both ways and see which works better. I don't think you can expect too much. My opinion only. I have never used the piccolo skimmer. Maybe someone who has experience with the piccolo will chime in.