Protein Skimmer during cycling?

pdiehm · Apr 1, 2015

My tank is a 120, with 75 lbs of dry pukani rock (been curing of PO4 since November). Reef Flakes sand. Brand stinkin new EM200 skimmer.

Do I run the skimmer during cycle to break it in? Or would that be making the cycle process longer?

VicD81 · Apr 1, 2015

You should not run the skimmer since you want all the stuff in there to break down naturally. You could run it with the cup removed but you only need to do that for a couple of days to break it in.

pdiehm · Apr 1, 2015

My skimmer has a drain tube...could I open that, and have that drain back into the sump? Or do i also need to remove the cup?

Skimmer that I have is the EM200 by Aquamaxx

GreatWhiteTang · Apr 1, 2015

I would wait until after cycling when ammonia and nitrite are 0 and nitrates 30 or less, then kick it on.. I've found the dirtier the water the quicker the skimmer seasons "breaks in" anyways.

mcarroll · Apr 1, 2015

pdiehm said:
(been curing of PO4 since November)

I assume this means the rock has been curing since November...what do you mean by "curing of PO4"?

Could you clarify if you are curing rock or cycling?

Curing means (in a nutshell) allowing dead stuff to finish dying before the rock goes in the tank and which should be unnecessary in your case. You WOULD want to run a skimmer in this case.

Cycling it means waiting for sufficient bacteria to colonize it before starting to slowly stock the tank - three to four months should be waaaay more than enough time. It's not necessary to run a skimmer here, but it wouldn't make much difference if you did. Save the power.

AdamNC · Apr 1, 2015

I ran mine but removed the cup just to break it in.

SeahorseKeeper · Apr 1, 2015

GreatWhiteTang said:
I would wait until after cycling when ammonia and nitrite are 0 and nitrates 30 or less, then kick it on.. I've found the dirtier the water the quicker the skimmer seasons "breaks in" anyways.

+1. I have never run my skimmer when cycling a tank.

mike007 · Apr 1, 2015

Have you added any livestock? I run my skimmer from day 1 but I was using live rock which has a lot of die off.
It will not hurt anything by running the skimmer.

pdiehm · Apr 1, 2015

mcarroll said:
I assume this means the rock has been curing since November...what do you mean by "curing of PO4"?

Could you clarify if you are curing rock or cycling?

Curing means (in a nutshell) allowing dead stuff to finish dying before the rock goes in the tank and which should be unnecessary in your case. You WOULD want to run a skimmer in this case.

Cycling it means waiting for sufficient bacteria to colonize it before starting to slowly stock the tank - three to four months should be waaaay more than enough time. It's not necessary to run a skimmer here, but it wouldn't make much difference if you did. Save the power.

I was curing. Letting the phosphates leach out to a manageable level, if not untraceable.

Everything is new. No livestock. Not cycled. Completely dry rock.

mcarroll · Apr 1, 2015

pdiehm said:
I was curing. Letting the phosphates leach out to a manageable level, if not untraceable.

Everything is new. No livestock. Not cycled. Completely dry rock.

I guess I've never had dry rock...but if it's polluted to that extent did you consider asking for your money back? I guess you must be monitoring po4 with a digital meter? What you are going through seems excessive for rock that had nothing on it to begin with. (Is that considered normal for dry rock?)

PO4 is supposed to be vaporized in skimming to some extent. It's too small an amount to be of use in a tank that's being bombarded with mass quantities of food, but in your case (specifically targeting po4 in a curing tank) I think there's a better-than-normal argument for running your skimmer.

pdiehm · Apr 1, 2015

It's Pukani rock and what I went through was normal.

I fired up my skimmer tonight...holy freakin quiet!

mcarroll · Apr 2, 2015

pdiehm said:
It's Pukani rock and what I went through was normal.

Wow, I had no idea....that'd have to be nearly free to be worth all that bother (to me anyway). Virtually all the live rock I've seen in the last several years barely even requires cycling and doesn't cost an exorbitant amount. Hm.

Good luck getting it done!