How quickly does a protein skimmer work?

[Murraydar]

Let's say I dump a bunch of food into my tank. In it I mix frozen food, reef roids, and amino acids. Assuming I run my skimmer 24/7 how long will it take to remove these from the system? Will skimming wet remove these things quicker?

I've also read that skimmers don't remove 100% of organics or whatever is in the aquarium. Does that mean you can never truly skim out 100% of a product or substance?

 

[RobZilla04]

Worth the 10 minute read:

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-06/fm/feature/

 

[Scrubber_steve]

The Development of a Method for the Quantitative Evaluation of Protein Skimmer Performance
By Ken S. Feldman

Further Studies on Protein Skimmer Performance
By Ken S. Feldman

Elemental Analysis of Skimmate: What Does a Protein Skimmer Actually Remove from Aquarium Water?
By Ken S. Feldman

 

[Murraydar]

Awesome I'll check those links out. Thanks!

 

[Dan_P]

The Development of a Method for the Quantitative Evaluation of Protein Skimmer Performance
By Ken S. Feldman

Further Studies on Protein Skimmer Performance
By Ken S. Feldman

Elemental Analysis of Skimmate: What Does a Protein Skimmer Actually Remove from Aquarium Water?
By Ken S. Feldman

These are great articles, but they both pull their punches about how to run skimmers. The information is there though. In short, if you want to remove as much organic material as you can, produce as much skimmate as you can practically empty and replace with new saltwater. If you can do water changes through wet skimming great! I shoot for 1% of my tanks volume a day in skimmate. That is a “practical” volume to empty and replace for me. There is probably an automated approach which shouldn’t be expensive these days. I have fish only system and have an incentive to do this.