Bye Bye Skimmer, Hello Canister Filter

[ReeferMadness99]

As for Vodka dosing, I can't stress how much it has improved my tanks. My LFS had a pretty bad hair algae outbreak in its frag tank. There was huge growths of it everywhere. He had to remove everything. He tried algae blennies, crabs, slugs, nothing was getting rid of it fast enough. Finally, he tried vodka dosing and it completely cleared up within 2 weeks. Its great. I use Smirnoff triple distilled (80 proof).

 

[waltercat]

xoomercom,

How big is your tank? That seems like a larger skimmer. I get about that much skimmate in 3 weeks for my 55G

 

[ReeferMadness99]

Wow, that is an incredible amount of skimmate sludge. You say it does that every 24 hours? Makes me think I need to fine tune my skimmer a little more. I think some people need to adjust their air intakes and water height. Do you have a huge bioload in your tank? How long has your skimmer been running?

 

[OctaviousMonk]

He is talking about a RR overflow like oceanic or AGA, not a hang on back overflow.
I used to run a canister on my first 55 gallon reef tank and it did pretty well, but it was twice the work. I cleaned the canister every 3 days and used that as a 1.5 gallon water change, plus my weekly 5-10 gallon change. Even then I still had a reading of 5 on my nitrates, though I never had an algae issue and still had LPS and softies thrive.

 

[ReeferMadness99]

Yeah, I'm sorry, didn't know your were talking about a hang on overflow. Always go Reef-Ready for a Reef!

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

Response in blue

[/color]


I don't think you've really responded to my query.

A. There is hardly any skimmate produced by your skimmer. May be true. If I had a skimmer produce this much I'd also think a canister might just be a better idea. IT IS NOT!

Anybody who thinks that a canister is going to work in a reef tank either doesn't understand the way the skimmer works or pretends that nitrogen cycle doesn't exist. No Comment. So, please don't assume I commented on the concepts presented in this statement.

Take a look at these pictures. This is my cup from a Turboflotor (no frills, off shelf) skimmer.

clean cup that will look like pic #1 in little over 24 hours. WOW how big is your system and that's a lot of skimmate in 24 hours. How much bioload you have there? How much you feed each day? Many members' tank here with over 150G and many fish with top of the line Deltec, or Bubble King did not have that much skimmate in 24 hours.

Whatever you see in the cup, is completely out of the system. I never dipute this. In fact, I mention this as an advantage in my TV program. A canister will have to "digest" this amount into ammonia then nitrite and then nitrate, compounding high nitrates problem. Agreed. In freshwater applications, canister is a perfect filter because freshwater inhabitants are not as sensitive to elevated levels of nitrate and water changes are relatively easier. You can easily dump 80-90% this actually is a wrong method unless your water is treated of the water, fill it up and be fine, something you wouldn't do in a salt water setup as means of nitrate export.



B. You are comparing apples to oranges. One is never going to be better than the other because they serve completely different purpose, it's like comparing SUV with a sports car. Please trace back my statements, I knew they are for different purposes and thus never compare the two directly so how am I comparing apple and oranges?:scratchch I am actually looking into these methods for another topic which I did not mention here at all.

 

[rbtwo4]

Reefer I dunno if there's a thread about dosing I'm actually on my celphone reading this thread but how do u dose vodka???

 

[georgelc86]

[/color]it's like comparing SUV with a sports car.

Porshe Cayenne

 

[georgelc86]

I have seen the thread on reefcentral, but not on MR.

 

[tosiek]

It was stated early on in the forum that canister filters won't work that well once it comes to nitrate and phosphate export Xoomer. As well as his setup and what he is trying to accomplish. It will be "good enough" for what he is trying to do though and will work to a degree. Its really hard to filter a system with a HoB skimmer and no sump area or a bunch of stuff hanging off the back of the tank.

Alot of people are reading this thread along with me are waiting for walter to semi fail, its inevitable. Even with weekly cleaning its still going to produce No3 and Po4, how much relies on what he has in the tank and how much he feeds. But maybe somethign good might come out of it all. Its also really good reading for people to see differences in the systems.

There is no way to turn a canister into a equally filtering system as a skimmer setup or other proven filtration methods for a reef tank. Not by keeping the canister with the same media layering as typical canisters there. And really all walter is doing is turning his canister into a not so efficient combo media-reactor/diatom filter to suite his own needs for his move.

As far as vodka dosing, the reason your seeing SOOO much more skimmate is because your adding tons of sugars/silicates and minerals into the system that causes the skimmer to seem to work better.

As far as it beeing a "Algae Cure" its not. Vodka doesn't always work for curing algae, and it isn't a "better filtration system". Your just dealing with a different bio filtation set of tools and its really easy to mess up your system with the water quality in the states long term on standard vodka alone. It also takes a strict regiment of dosing with alot of things aside from just smirnoff and some added sugar like your supposed to be doing.

Check up on RC and other threads, alot of people don't use vodka past 4-8 months. After a year they start to see bad algae, bleaching and other problems if not crashes.

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

Dose the smiroff into me will definitely work. I will go scrape the tank afterwards.

Madness, bring it to me! LOL

I have no idea if it works for removing algae as I never really set up any experiment to test that.

 

[cali_reef]

Where is the last thread of someone claim he "successfully" removed his skimmer and don't think he needs one? I like to see some pictures of a tank without a skimmer or other ways to efficiently export the crap for long periods of time.

Skimmer has been proven to help a closed system in removing crap while not letting the crap decay in the tank water. Canister filter do remove crap but also provide the best location for the crap to break down and become toxic to the fish and coral. It will work but you have to remove the crap before it breaks down, I don't think many of us can be diligent enough.

 

[Deanos]

Pierce, we don't usually get to see pictures like that It's one of the reasons I asked for pics at the start of this endeavor.

 

[cali_reef]

Pierce, we don't usually get to see pictures like that It's one of the reasons I asked for pics at the start of this endeavor.

I have seen pictures of tanks that went skimmerless.. they are typically water less and in the for sale forum few months later. :lol2:

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

Walter forget to ask you, what are you keeping in your tank?

 

[waltercat]

Pierce, we don't usually get to see pictures like that It's one of the reasons I asked for pics at the start of this endeavor.

Do you have any requests for pics of my tank? I was just going to take some pics of my rocks to show some of the algae on them.

I was also going to take some pics of my canister when I cleaned it out the first time.

Here are some pic from right after I set up the 55G.

http://johnstires.com/fixing-an-aquarium-leak/302

There are also some pics of my 33G that had the leak. This move was done March 29th. I haven't done a water change since and the algae problem has still been improving.

As for what i keep, I have a pretty basic setup or run of the mill softies, xenia, zoos, LPS and SPS. Fish include 2 clowns, 2 sharknose gobies, a cardinalfish, and a pink spotted goby. I just pulled out 2 yellow clown gobies who were irritating my sps. Those guys were a bad bad impulse buy from Petco. I rarely make a move like that without researching something, but they were paired really cute and in the only healthy tank in Petco. Anyways, they were annexed to my 5G nano. that is skimmerless and I do nothing to it exept transfer water between it and my 55G.

After things settle from my move i plan to get some more fish for the 55G

 

[cali_reef]

RIF:tongue1:

Walter forget to ask you, what are you keeping in your tank?

See now this is the type of post I was looking for.

My tank is a 55G. Has a mix of SPS, softies and LPS. I have 2 clowns, a bangaii cardinal, a pink spotted goby and 2 sharknose gobies. I have a vortech 20 and a JBJ chiller. Aquatinics T5s. I tested my water last night before I got rid of the skimmer and Phosphates were 0, Nitrates were close to 0 and Calcium levels were 440-450. Temp is kept at 78 and salinity is 1.026. I dose ESV 2 part and just starte Mg yesterday. I honestly haven't tested the water in a while so I can't provide numbers to back that my tank has improved since adding the fluval in tank. At least I have a good benchmark for where my parameters are before the change.

 

[HHaase]

one of the thing's i would do when changing out pads is dont change out all of them at the same time, the pads will support some of the benificial bacteria, change a pad a week,

I was just about to post the same thing.

If you service too much of the mechanical media at one time, you strip out all that bacteria and can potentially see a spike of ammonia and nitrites as a result.

To prevent an ammonia spike you have to change/clean the filter media in stages, in order to preserve the bacteria. And in doing so, you maintain the nitrogen cycle and the nitrate levels.

-Hans

 

[waltercat]

I was just about to post the same thing.

If you service too much of the mechanical media at one time, you strip out all that bacteria and can potentially see a spike of ammonia and nitrites as a result.

To prevent an ammonia spike you have to change/clean the filter media in stages, in order to preserve the bacteria. And in doing so, you maintain the nitrogen cycle and the nitrate levels.

-Hans

My main tank is filled with biological filtration, I'm not sure this would be the case.

 

[ReeferMadness99]

Here is the best info on Vodka dosing that I read up on before starting. I think many tank crashes occur because people push the limit with the dosing. There's no need to dose at such high levels.

Basically, Vodka or the ethanol in it promotes a bacterial bloom or the growth of bacteria in the tank. This bacteria inherently absorbs nitrates and phosphates during cellular reproduction causing a reduction of both in your tank. The skimmer begins to create more skimmate because it is removing this organic bacteria from your water column. It is important that you have a good working protein skimmer to do this. Without the excess nutrients of phosphate and nitrates, your algae will die off and you will have increased calcification and your SPS will thank you for it.

Read up, great article! http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/index.php