Skimmers for nano

[Gardy]

Hello all, new here (have been lurking for quite some time). Anyway I have a 16 gallon bowfront I set up for my daughter about a year ago, stocked with softies and LPS, running a reef octopus BH1000 skimmer, and HOB power filter with just a bag of carbon in it. The reef octopus has been running great, however is hard to tune In considering the size the skimmer is rated for And the smallish bio load on the tank. I have one full grown clown, 2 turbo snails, 4 bumblebee snails, 2 small blue leg hermits, 1 emerald crab, 1 peppermint shrimp, handful of acans, Duncan, trumpet coral, green toadstool leather, and a handful of zoeanthid frags. And about 10lbs of live rock. Anyway getting to my question, I'm in the process of setting up a 93 gallon cube, and just bought a 40 breeder as a frag tank to get some frags going and ready for when the cube is done. Would I see any benefit to throwing a smaller skimmer on the 16 gallon (tunze 9001 or 9002?) and putting the BH1000 on the frag tank? I know it would do well on the 40 since I will likely be heavily feeding the corals to get some growth on them, so if I don't move it over I'm going to just buy another BH1000 for it. Water parameters are all in line,
Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 4ppm ish
Calcium 430
Alk 9dkh
Mg 1400
Po4 .02

Water changes are 4 gallons every week, feeding all LPS 2 times a week with mysis, and 1ml acro power every other day, fish get fed with the mysis left over from coral feelings and then pellets 2 times a week for a total of 4 feedings a week

Thanks for your input, and glad to be a part of this great fourm. I will be putting up the start to my build thread on my 93 gallon here soon btw

-Tim

 

[CoralHut]

The tunze skimmers can be a challenge to dial in when they are not getting a constant water level which might be the case on your tank. Assuming it is a standard setup. What are your dialing issues with the BH1000? Are you getting any skim at all?

 

[Gardy]

I have trouble getting constant output, most of the time it skims pretty wet, if I lower the cup any more it will build a strong head but not collect anything in the collection cup, it guess the wet skimming isn't all bad but IDE rather be more efficient with

 

[SuperDave531]

I made one once a little while back that did the job for my 10g black reef. The skim would be wet as well, but that would aid me in my water changes; about 1/2 a normal bottle of water every 2 days or so.

I took inspiration from the Japanese Mame all glass skimmer for small systems.

[video=youtube;DhJJlEvmOpc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhJJlEvmOpc[/video]

after tweaking with it I was able to dial it in and get a deep pee yellow liquid, even more than in the video, but it was tricky since I had to top do top off every day by hand.

[video=youtube;_HExTMvL4q0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HExTMvL4q0[/video]

 

[racin2438]

I tried the the Hydor Nano Skimmer, in our JBJ 30g Nano and it was hit and miss, more miss. I ended up taking out. I do 10g WC one week then. 15g the next week.

With weekly WC I see no reason to run a skimmer in our Nano.

I do run a Urchin skimmer in our 20g Frag, but I have it in the 20g sump and it's works great in there.

 

[Gardy]

Maybe I'll just deal with it for now, even with a weekly 4 gallon WC on a 16 gallon tank I'm still pulling out quite a bit of gunk in the skimmer, just can't get it to dry skim lol