Issues With Carbon Dosing and Skimmer Performance

[jacobc1199]

Hello all,
My tank has been up for almost year now with various ups and downs and I’m finally getting to the point to be able to invest more time and money into my tank. I had previously used carbon dosing in the form of NO3 PO4x successfully in my tank and it gave me good results - low NO3, PO4, crystal clear water. Recently I have tried to use it again and every time I get immediate bacterial blooms. I can visibly see the white cloudy bacterial flocks. The only thing I can think think of that has changed is that I only have one clownfish in a ~35 gallon system due to some losses a couple months ago. My thinking is that the bioload for my tank is really small and so the skimmer is having a hard time producing a stable foam head so it is not skimming efficiently. My issue with this is that If I can see the bacterial flocks wouldn’t this definitely be enough to stabilize the foam head and skim? The skimmate I am getting is very, very light and I really can think of anything I could change. My skimmer is the slim skim Nano by hydror which is a little finicky but has always done a decent job before. I’ve cleaned the skimmer, adjusted the water level according to the manual, etc with no real results. I’m really at a loss here! The recommended doing for the NO3PO4 is 1mL / 25 gallons assuming the lowest range of NO3 and PO4 and I’m still getting these flocks even though I’m under dosing the carbon (only 1mL for 35 gallons!). Feel free to shout out ideas I’m open to anything at this point!

 

[GoVols]

Skimmer:

Maybe your organics have gone down, thus not enough dissolved organics to get good skimmate.

You could dose some Red Sea "Reef Energy" to see if your skimmer pulls that in.

Also make sure that where your air line goes into your skimmer's verturi, that it's not clogged with salt build up, in there.

Keep testing your phosphates and nitrates to make sure that you don't zero out, with NoPoX.

If you just cleaned your skimmer, it may take awhile to build a good skim coat, and needs more time to break back in.

 

[jacobc1199]

Skimmer:

Maybe your organics have gone down, thus not enough dissolved organics to get good skimmate.

You could dose some Red Sea "Reef Energy" to see if your skimmer pulls that in.

Also make sure that where your air line goes into your skimmer's verturi, that it's not clogged with salt build up, in there.

Keep testing your phosphates and nitrates to make sure that you don't zero out, with NoPoX.

If you just cleaned your skimmer, it may take awhile to build a good skim coat, and needs more time to break back in.

That’s what I was thinking. I just don’t understand how the bacterial flocks wouldn’t contribute to the dissolved organics enough to allow the skimmer to function properly. I will definitely check the air line because that has been an issue before. I’m getting plenty of bubbles the skimmate just doesn’t seem to have any color and the cloudiness isn’t going away.

 

[larryrick1]

Even though you are only dosing NoPoX at 1 ml/35 gallons, this is still probably to much. After you test your Po4 & No3, try reducing your NoPoX dose down to 0.25 ml/day and make adjustments up or down according to your Po4 & No3 levels.
My reef tank has a total system volume of 50 gallons and I am only dosing 0.5 ml/day of NoPoX. I'm using a skimmer, filter socks and 10 gallon weekly water changes. I have 7 fish in a 40 breeder ( 2 clowns, yellow tang, 2 blennies, fire fish and a royal gramma ). I feed pellets mixed with reef roids via an auto feeder daily and 1 cube of frozen food daily. No3 ranging 1 - 2 and Po4 ranging 0.01 to 0.04. No GFO. Tank has been running for 13 months. In the past I have used a UV sterilizer to combat bacterial blooms.