Skimmer overflow

[saullman]

Part 1
What curious what is the negative impact on my 45 gal tank when my skimmer overflows? So whenever I lose power at my house my skimmer usually overflows due to having an AIO tank and me being at work. I'm not really sure how to get around this besides upgrading to a larger tank with a sump.

Part 2
I am having very bad GHA issues that I've been fighting with for months now. Could the skimmer overflowing have something to do with the GHA issue?

 

[rmurken]

Hey just bumping this because I searched for “skimmer overflowed” because mine did, and I had your same question #1. No GHA though.

I had maybe a cup or cup and a half of medium-dark skimmate go back into my system, which has about 55 gallons total volume. Three days worth, basically.

I haven’t had any disastrous effects. My skimmer seemed to pick it all back up in a day or two of unusually high activity. I’m surmising that the fraction of gunk represented by the original skimmate was pulled back out of the tank by the skimmer pretty easily.

I have some zoas. They were fine. Maybe closed up a bit briefly, but they’re back to normal. Fish and non-coral inverts were fine.

I noticed a little more brownish stuff growing—could be algae or diatoms; not sure, but harmless. Same during the period when the venturi in my skimmer was partially blocked with calcium deposits, and the skimmer just wasn’t working very well.

 

[rmurken]

Last time someone posted, folks seemed to be pretty reassuring—no real consequences if it happens occasionally:

Skimmer overflowed during water change

hey everyone, I was doing a water change and forgot to turn off my skimmer. By the time I realized it it was overflowing. Should I be worried about introducing the skim back in my tank? It was about 2 days worth of medium wet skim. Thanks!

www.reef2reef.com

As for your GHA question, I don’t know. It certainly is possible that it’s linked. You might want to look into what causes GHA and see if it matches up with the nutrients typically in skimmate. It’s organics so the compounds I think tend to contain nitrogen and phosphate among other things.

 

[Dan_P]

Part 1
What curious what is the negative impact on my 45 gal tank when my skimmer overflows? So whenever I lose power at my house my skimmer usually overflows due to having an AIO tank and me being at work. I'm not really sure how to get around this besides upgrading to a larger tank with a sump.

Part 2
I am having very bad GHA issues that I've been fighting with for months now. Could the skimmer overflowing have something to do with the GHA issue?

Just saw these questions.

At first blush, “Part 1” seems like it should be answered “no problem, don’t worry about it”. Pulling waste out and then putting it back in. Overall, no net change to the system.

Where there might be a net change is when there is a dark skimmate in the collection cup and all of that gets dumped back into the system. This large bolus of organic matter which has sat in the collection cup possibly for days being digested by bacteria is a very different brew than when it was first collected. The amount of this brew and the frequency of dumping it iinto your system determines whether it is an important event.

The answer to the second question is “probably not”, but consider how often the aged dark skimmate might be dumped into the system.