Is it possible that my skimmer is too big?

[tyler1503]

Hey guys. I've had my skimmer for over a year now and I've never been able to get a nice thick gunky skimmate. It's always been a light tea colour, if that.
I'm thinking it's because my skimmer is so big that i don't have enough muck in my water column to skim out and produce a thick stinky mess. I feed extremely heavily and I have messy feeders and it doesn't seem to pull much out. I had an issue with the water level in it fluctuating but I just bought a new impeller and gave the whole skimmer a good cleaning and it's working like new again.
My tank is 24 gallons and the skimmer is an Aquaone G220 rated for a 211 gallon tank with a flow rate of 370 gallons per hour, so it's rated for almost 10x the size of my tank. Overkill much?
Does this theory of it being too big have any merit? Or is it something else?

 

[NC2WA]

tyler,

making sure I am reading this correctly??

you have a 24 gallon tank with a skimmer that is rated for 211 gallons??


if so, then yes, you have too much skimmer...you can over skim a tank...basically, you have no bio load in your tank as your skimmer is "over" doing its job.

 

[tyler1503]

tyler,

making sure I am reading this correctly??

you have a 24 gallon tank with a skimmer that is rated for 211 gallons??


if so, then yes, you have too much skimmer...you can over skim a tank...basically, you have no bio load in your tank as your skimmer is "over" doing its job.

Hahaha it sounds stupid when someone else says it!
I've always been told by many different sources that it wasn't possible to over skim, plus I got this skimmer for free so I chucked it on. But I thought something was up when the actual skimmer was taller than my tank!

 

[jcdeng]

is your tank reef or fish only? if fish only u dont even need a skimmer, hob filter will be fine. more over, for your 24g tank do u actually run a sump? if not where did u put the big skimmer?

 

[tyler1503]

It's just a fowlr at the moment. I decided to put it on because I have a snowflake eel (who will be going back to the LFS sometime soon) and a valentini puffer who eats flake. They're both very messy fish. Plus I was fighting GHA at the time.
I'm sumpless at the moment, so it's just a HOB.

 

[McAllyn]

With a flow rate of 370gph, you're bordering on "negative-time" dwell time, lol. Bascially, you're skimming water that the food hasn't even dissolved into yet. Do you run the skimmer 24/7? You might be able to pick up it's efficiency by only running some of the time, technically letting some stuff build up in the water for a couple days, then turning the skimmer on for a short period of time.

Bottom line, that skimmer is WAY too big and way too fast for your system.

Mac

 

[TheSaint216]

What Hob skimmer are you using thats rated for a 200 gallon tank?

 

[ravi197699]

I like to get equipment keep upgrades in mind because once you buy good brand stuff and use it then its hard to sell... so I buy large overkill equipment and then when i upgrade i dont have to lay out money for everything new again .... JMO

 

[ritter6788]

I have a skimmer rated for 200 on my 20 gallon frag tank with one fish. Works just fine. I don't think you can over skim a tank. A large skimmer may take more time to build up enough waste to skim out but I don't think you can strip the water too clean with a skimmer. Just my opinion from having over sized skimmers on all my tanks.

 

[tyler1503]

...You might be able to pick up it's efficiency by only running some of the time, technically letting some stuff build up in the water for a couple days, then turning the skimmer on for a short period of time....

Seriously considering doing this. Thanks for the suggestion.

What Hob skimmer are you using thats rated for a 200 gallon tank?

It's an Aquaone G220. It's RRP is $90 AUD. Worked really well from the bloke I got it from. He was emptying a thick black paste from it every week or so.

Thanks Ravi and Ritter. I like having bigger sizes too for potential upgrades