Big protein skimmer?

[margaritaville]

Heard lots of people say get the biggest protein skimmer you can for your tank. But now im hearing people say they are skimming little to none for the skimming is removing everything good from the water, and think they're coral are better with out skimming. Any thoughts?

 

[sailfin]

I know this post may not help any, but I can't help myself. I actually have experienced what I would consider too much skimming in my old tank. I went with a very small skimmer for two years and had great color and growth on LPS, SPS and zoas. I talked myself into upgrading to a bigger and better skimmer. After about a year I noticed my SPS not coloring up as much. My LPS shrinking and my zoas not opening as good. I checked for every type of bug or disease I could think of to no avail. I have since left that tank to the new homeowner and moved some of the more rare corals I had to a new tank in an apartment. To my surprise the corals look as they did early on. FYI - All parameters of the old and new tank are identical, pH, NH4, NO2, NO3 and salinity. All of this will be validated in time after the new tank has been able to run for a while. I'll keep you posted.

 

[bkv1997]

I personally believe that overskimming is a crock of :pooh:.

Now that you know my opinion I think it also depends on your system, maintenance routine, etc and that everyone must decide whats right for their system.

I won't get into why I think what I do, but instead will point you to an article you can read by a well respected chemist who understand things alot better than I do.

What is Skimming? by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

My general advice as it realates to skimming.
If you keep leathers, zoanthids, xenia have a good skimmer but don't go overboard. However, I have zoanthids in my tank.

If you keep SPS and LPS skim like crazy. I have a skimmer rated for a 500 gallon tank on my 100 gallon system and run carbon on top of that 24x7 to pull out anything the skimmer leaves behind and my corals have plenty of color.

Skimming provides other benefits like aereation that help reduce PH shifts during the lights out hours also.

Hope this helps. Just my thoughts, but ultimatley I would read some of the above articles and decide for yourself.

Brandon


P.S. another method of reef keeping people are experimenting with is the zeovit system ZEOvit.com Forum - ZEOvit you don't have to buy into the expensive supplements to understand what they are doing to accomplish such great results. Low nutrient systems produce better colors in SPS.

 

[margaritaville]

WOW thanks for the sites! good info. New info for me.

 

[bkv1997]

Glad you took the time to read them... Very good info that there was no way I could summarize.

 

[margaritaville]

Ever heard of the zeolit war of 2004. LOL I didnt til yesterday when someone was telling me that a bunch of Zeolit supporters were getting into it with non-Zeolites? and a bunch of them got kicked off of reef central? Just what I heard not for sure if its true, but I thought it was kinda funny

 

[jhnrb]

So there you have it. some get very passonate with what they believe in. anyways it is not possible with the skimmers available to the average hobbist to over skim albiet at some point dosing supplements may be needed. I will be running 5 skimmers on my system and do not worry about overskimming, but will also have an automated dosing schedule. my best advice presently is to buy a skimmer for at least twice the size of your system as a minimum. there is a lot more to it than just skimming but for just skimming minimally twice the size to start as a minimum. happy fishin.