Over Skimming - Is it Real

[mardoon]

Here is my skimate from my nyos 300 . Before weekly cleaning. Need get automatic neck cleaner

 

[Stigigemla]

I did my first overskimming 1973. I had a 110 gallon tank with a skimmer body 16 inch high and 4 inch wide driven with an Eheim pump of 2 gallons per minute. Everything went fine but the tank was getting more and mor sunky of all detritus and a thick layer of green algae.
I built a new skimmer 6 inch wide and 4 feet high driven by an Eheim of 8 gallons per minute. In 2 weeks my feather dusters was gone and my big Cerianthus anemone was getting smaller and smaller. And the algae was decreising too.
I converted the tank to cold water fish only.

Today the hobby is quite different. We can test for a lot of parameters in the water and maintain a lot of corals. Then i only had a handfed Tubastrea. And dont have to use home mixed pH indicator.

But we can still overskim - at least for Mushrooms and buttons. So now I recommend about a tank volume in air in the skimmer per hour for those who begins in the hobby. Okay that is maybe overskimming according to skimmer manufactures but if you are keeping corals from low nutrient areas (Acropora) they normally do good with the double or maybe even more. But in such a tank the mushrooms will diminish to nothing.

In my eyes overskimming is when the corals starve and you have to add coral foods to keep them well going.
Normally fish poo and maybe some trace elements will be good.

 

[jeffrey holloway]

Every system is different, what works for one may not work for another. In my case over skimming was hurting my tank. I was using a skimz sm203 and it left my system sterile. My SPS wasn't doing anything but surviving. I switched over to the Zevovit system, down sized skimmer to a Lifereef SVS-24 and saw a dramatic difference in coral color and growth. Its all about what you want your skimmer to do. By running a ULN system over skimming with a needle wheel skimmer was not necessary for me.

 

[Scott.h]

If you are fortunate enough to think your corals are suffering from over skimming there is good news. You can add more livestock. .

To me the only question would be the proper size, as if it's too big it wouldn't push the foam over the top, which would result in cleaning the junk off the inside neck instead of inside the cup.

 

[Jbryan243]

Yes it is true. I started using ozone a few years after I set up my tank. Ozonizers have gotten much better now but I never ran my tank without one.

My very sexy DIY skimmer and you can see the ozonizer on the wall near my very cool thermostat gage that I took off one of the boilers in the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.
Don't make fun of my phone. It is an I Phone, the cord is just so no one steals it.

I have the same iPhone and with that cord no one has ever tried to steel it and those cool buttons right on the phone can play Mary had a little lamb. 9-5-1-5-999-555-999

 

[CenlaReefer]

Yes it is true. I started using ozone a few years after I set up my tank. Ozonizers have gotten much better now but I never ran my tank without one.

My very sexy DIY skimmer and you can see the ozonizer on the wall near my very cool thermostat gage that I took off one of the boilers in the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.
Don't make fun of my phone. It is an I Phone, the cord is just so no one steals it.

Is that an entire column of bubbles? How tall is that thing?

 

[CenlaReefer]

If you are fortunate enough to think your corals are suffering from over skimming there is good news. You can add more livestock. .

To me the only question would be the proper size, as if it's too big it wouldn't push the foam over the top, which would result in cleaning the junk off the inside neck instead of inside the cup.

I like this idea better than adding liquid nitrate supplements to a tank.

 

[Paul B]

Is that an entire column of bubbles? How tall is that thing?

Its over five feet tall and filled with bubbles.

 

[FugeTown]

Octopus reef works like a boss

 

[mic209]

While we are on the topic, how do the manufacturers come up with a gallon rating for their skimmers?

 

[dragon99]

While we are on the topic, how do the manufacturers come up with a gallon rating for their skimmers?

dice?

I'm assuming it is tied to the air draw and they relate that to it's skimming capability.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

While we are on the topic, how do the manufacturers come up with a gallon rating for their skimmers?

dice?

I'm assuming it is tied to the air draw and they relate that to it's skimming capability.

also gph turnover I believe.

 

[mic209]

dice?

I'm assuming it is tied to the air draw and they relate that to it's skimming capability.

Dice is what I was thinking. GPH makes sense too, but are they actually taking a 200 gallon rated skimmer, putting it on a 200 gallon system and measuring TDS before and after?

 

[dragon99]

Some mfg's probably test their skimmers in real tanks, but since a lot of designs are copies (of copies). I'm betting they just try to match paper specs.

 

[Playa-1]

My Name is Sonny and I'm an Overskimmer

 

[FugeTown]

My Name is Sonny and I'm an Overskimmer

Hi Sonny

 

[Mark Garcia]

Absolutely real, but very tank dependant imo.

My theory is...Back in the day most of us packed our tanks with tons of live rock giving detritus tons of dead spots to settle and rot. In that case the biggest skimmer we could fit in our sump was appropriate and necessary to keep our nutrients manageable.

However more and more you see very open and minimal aquascapes and people not overstocking their tanks with fish. In this case (and in my case) too large of a skimmer keeps the nutrients too low for coral to thrive and/or even survive. I scratched my head for months wondering why my corals were looking very bad. My thinking was "ALK, CA, MG are perfect. Po4 and no3 almost undetectable everything should be triving!! What the heck is going on!?!?"

We'll basically I was starving my corals to death. Zooxanthellae are at the end of the day an algae and need nutrients to survive and if your stripping your tank of any and all nutrients the zooxanthellae slowly die without any "food".

I run a Vertex Omega 150 on a 66g tank because I purchased it with the thought "get the biggest skimmer you can fit". Well now that it's been off for a month and I started dosing nitrates my corals have slowly started to make a come back, but unfortunately I didn't realize what I was doing wrong until it was to late for a large portion of them.

So if I have a 1 and 1/2 inch sand bed, I should not vacuum all the way to the bottom?

 

[FugeTown]

I use a reef octopus 1000 classic hob Rated for 75 gallon tank medium stocked and I have a 40 gallon breeder lightly stocked so I'm guilty for overskimming. Let me end this post with this skimmer skims the hell outta my tank and I can't complain, so glad I purchased it and look how clear my water is.

 

[Playa-1]

I think the limiting factor in my Over skimming is me not cleaning the Skimmer neck in a timely manner.

 

[bif24701]

IMO, it is an open question of what actually remains in the water after heavy skimming. TOC doesn't say what the residual materials are, or even whether they have any substantial biological availability. Identifying particulate organics is quite difficult, and even soluble organics require extensive research to pin down exactly what they are.

This is something I thing needs more attention. We don't know what exactly is being removed or not. All we know is that some smelly stuff comes out and our experience has told us our systems are healthier for it.

My skimmer is a SRO-5000, my display is 180, total system volume is about 300. I did have a time when my corals were starved. Fish removed for treatment and the system has been fallow since. However I stopped feeding as much and still using GAC, GFO, filter socks, cheato, skimmer , and vinegar. I think we all are missing an important thing. All TOCs/DOCs are not food. They are all kinds of different biological waste, excretions, metabolites, and much more. These things will build up with out a good way to remove them. That's why I chose a good big skimmer and GAC. To keep my corals fed I have a bypass after my skimmer around the filter sock that allows particles to flow around my system but not so much it clouds the water. Much like the KZ Zeo method I add foods and things that my fish and corals need to grow and thrive. Over skimming isn't a threat as much as not feeding or not supplying your corals with what they need.