Are you a "part-time" protein skimmer?

[Rydogg420]

Logged in to give my 2 cents. I ran a reef tank on a poor man's budget years ago. It was a 75gal sps dominated tank with any other nice lps and zoas. I used a cheap MH t5 combo light off ebay. Cost 250 bucks and it was more then worth the price. IL name drop if anyone needs a great light at a low price. His seller name is topdogseller on ebay. It's a 2x 250 MH with 4xT5 54 watts and about 12 lunar leds. All bulbs abs ballast included, very nice for the price and grew anything I put under it.
Back to my poor man's story, I ran my 75gal reef tank using well water through a Ro_DI. No skimmer or anything fancy. Just a 40 gal sump with macro, LR and sand. I used a 5 dollar reflector with a florescent bulb to light the sump. I used instant ocean reef crystals and 2 part dosing off BRS.
I had this tank for at least 8 to 10 years and it florished, I couldn't kill corals if I tried in this setup. It was perfect and packed with I kid you not 200 plus frags and colonies of sps, zoas and other random things. I started to sell corals so I just bought masses of frags and grew them out to chop up in a few months.

Fast forward 5 years, Now I can afford nice equipment, have a 120gal DT 40gal sump. Radion g3 leds, vortex 150 skimmer on 24_7, gfo reactors, carbon reactors and anything else I think will help. But I can't grow corals like I used too. I now live on city water with clorine instead of good old well water. I have nothing but troubles now I have moved and upgraded everything. It's funny to go back and think how easy growing sps was on a low cost setup and well water. I really wonder if city water is so bad corals just can't grow? I've been in this hobby for 15 years and know a thing or two.. but I can never get my new tank to florish like my old 75gal did with just a light and a sump.

I'd like to see who uses well water and who uses city water and see who's tank looks better. I of course mean using a Ro unit and not just out of the tap to the tank. Lol.

 

[dave decarli]

I have from time to time shut off my vortech's for feeding and forgot to turn them on and I find that my corals LOVE IT!!!! my frogspawn and others are more open and much more colorful. go ahead leave them off for a few hours and see for yourself. TANKS and happy reefin. dave

 

[jgraz]

Well I'm glad i cam across this article. I have been having a tough time with colors in my system. Growth is great, colors are pale and blah. Been checking parameters and found that my nitrates were 0 on a red sea test and PO4 was .03 on my hanna. So I upped feedings a bit and checked again 2 weeks later. Same findings. Took bio pellets off line and checked again. Guess what........my PO4 went down to .02, nitrates still 0. My system is a approx 300 total gallons with a very light load(8 fish). For export I employ a standard 65 gal tank for a 5" deep sand bed with macro and a SWC 230 cone skimmer witch is rated around my total with a heavy load I believe. It usually take me about 2 weeks to fill the skimmer cup with black skimmate. So yes my nutrients are quite low.

So after reading here I figure I'll give some part time skimming a shot. Not sure how I'm going to go about it yet. Thinking about skimming at night and then off for the day. Anyone have some ideas on that. 1 day on 1 day off perhaps? Here are some pics of a few things as they are right now for a "before" reference.

For reference here a a few pieces I just added at RAP last weekend

I'll update in a couple of weeks.

 

[CenlaReefer]

I've been using bio pellets from Two Little Fishies for a couple of years off and on. That company claims use of the pellets along with heavy skimming helps to feed one's corals. Anyone knows how this works? I do have some poor coloration with my corals which is like due to over-skimming. When I have left my skimmer off for a couple of days and then turn it back on again, I noticed an immediate feeding response on my LPS corals- even with my lights on. Why would this happen? This may be a good reason to skim only at night. I am going to try using an old-school timer for my skimmer to turn it on at night and back off again in the early morning. I will post my results later.

 

[FranklinDattein]

24x7.
Whenever I notice it the skimmer is overrunning, I see as a chance to increase fish feeding, aminoacids dosing, pyho dosing, reefroids etc.

 

[ou12004]

I feed my corals at night when polyp extension is the greatest, it would seem counter intuitive to feed at night and skim at night. Is the ph swing really that great that skimming during the day and not night would make a significant difference? I guess I could set my controller to run the skimmer during the day for a few days and then at night for a few days and see what the ph swing is.

I guess a follow up question would be is there a benefit as to feeding coral at night instead of the day time?

 

[djbetterly]

When you say part time skimming...how many hours turned off are we talking?

 

[laineyg6]

I have a nano tank (standard 10 G with a HOB filter) and just can't find anyone who recommends a reliable skimmer. I had my LFS tell me yesterday that with massive (frequent) water changes and a UV sterlizer, she goes without a skimmer in her biocube. Partly because the Biocube skimmer is notoriously crappy.

Need an opinion on this. I found a Rio HOB skimmer and thought about grabbing it, but that just gets to be a lot of crap hanging on such a small tank and then too much flow from all the devices. I (shamefully admit that I) don't do water changes as often as I should, so I definitely think a skimmer is mega important for my setup. Have never found a reasonably sized UV sterilizer that can be used in a 10 G tank.

If/when I have a skimmer on my tank, I run it 24/7.

Thoughts?

 

[djbetterly]

Check out the link!
http://reefbuilders.com/2009/06/08/mame-glass-skimmer-mame-design/

 

[Ro.an]

A month went by and I don't see any improvement. I'm going to put my skimmer back online 24/7 but will increase feeding, I will see how that goes.

 

[CarolinaReefs]

OK I have been running part time for 3 weeks now. I am going to test No3 and Po4 this afternoon. (Has been consistently 0.00) But so far what I have seen:
Film algae on the glass is growing a little quicker, my zoas look a little better (don't seem as irritated as much, most are opening nicely) sps seem about the same and my chaeto in the sump has exploded. The size of my chaeto has doubled where its growth was slow to none. I have has issues in the past with dino's and I'm seeing some of it coming back.

 

[NanaReefer]

I agree with djbetterly. Mame skimmers are one of the best for nano tanks, especially AIO's.

 

[Jimbo662]

Any updates? My system had been chugging along pretty well. 175g with I guess an average bio load. A few sps and a lot of lps and everything was looking happy. I ended up losing about half the fish to what I suspect was velvet. So far I've moved half the remaining fish to QT and trying to catch the remaining 4. I started losing corals shortly after and I assumed it was due to the fish dieing and not being able to find some of the carcasses and fouling the water. Last fish died about a month ago. Naturally I reduced feeding since I went from about 16 fish down to 4. I continued losing stuff and have been testing and kept coming up with 0 on everything. I even tried increasing the amount I feed but still 0 on everything. Last night I turned the skimmer off. Planned to leave it off at least a full day before restarting and trying running part time to see if that has any affect.

 

[Ari]

Very interesting topic. How would running protein skimmer partially like only at night benefit the system. How about gfo , should that also be on alternate hours? How about dosing carbon liquid or solid like biopellet? Should that be stoped? What are we really aiming now with regards to nitrate and phosphate levels ? What is the new normal levels for a successful sps system? should paying more attention to prevent "alkalinity swings" be the key to successful sps keeping? My system is predominantly sps/lps. I would consider it heavy bio load including the fish mostly tang in my 120g system. Still, I will be trying this starting tonight, setting my skimmer to run the same time when I turn the lights on my refugium which is from 4pm to 11am. I will still run gfo/carbon 24/7. Will still dose biofuel/microbacter7 at night since my nitrate are still in the 40's and maybe wean off when levels are in the 20's. Will dose amino in the morning . Will let the corals sleep at night. Any input? Thanks.

 

[ajtomase]

So, you may have noticed that I actually took a day off from writing yesterday. I simply didn't feel all that great...Apparently the flu that's been going around paid me a visit, just a few days before I'm headed out to Denver for a speaking engagement Reefstock 2014. Being sick is not always the worst thing in the world, because it gave me the opportunity to focus on getting more corals up on the website and more corals out to you, our customers!

Since I'm still not 100%, I'd like to present a topic for conversation, that you can help liven up with your insight and contributions...I'll fire the first volley, but I'd like for you to continue and enhance this discussion, ok?

You knew I'd have to breach the subject of protein skimming eventually, right? Now, I'm not going to give a treatise or a scientific paper on how foam fractionation works, and the ratio of inorganic to organic compounds removed, or all of that scientific stuff which, admittedly, is way above my head. What I want to get at is the practical application of skimming, and how it's impacted your reefing.

I have always been a subscriber to the school of thought that says that skimming is a rational necessity for most reefs. I would not ru na reef system without one. I would not run a reef without a skimmer NOT because I am convinced that a tank will fail without one. The reason is that I am a fan of employing multiple modes of nutrient export within a reef system, and protein skimming is just one effective avenue to accomplish this. I think Ken Feldman's study a few years back revealed that the majority of skim mate was INORGANIC compounds, not organic carbon compounds. Yes, some organic material is removed in the process, but not as much as we think. Another positive influence of protein skimmers in a reef aquarium is that they serve to oxygenate the water and assist with gas exchange, creating a healthier overall reef environment.

As you know, I've written repeatedly about how we don't skim 24/7/365 at UC anymore, and how our corals reflected this in better color and more consistent growth. So, since we know that skimming isn't quite as efficient at removing DOC as we used to assume, perhaps it's the removal of some of the inorganic stuff (CaCO3, MgCO3, and SiO2 ) that negatively affects the growth of our corals when we skim aggressively and continuously. Regardless, skimming super aggressively (as I used to do during the 1990's) has, in my experience, historically resulted in less colorful, less rapidly-growing corals. Our experience at Unique Corals with backing off of the protein skimming has been completely positive.

I'm not telling reefers to turn their protein skimmers into vases. What I am suggesting is that we employ multiple methods of nutrient control and export so that we don't rely excessively on any one practice, methodology, or piece of hardware. If I had to choose just one method, I'd employ regular water exchanges, as they offer the dual benefit of removing dissolved organic compounds from the system, while helping replenish inorganic compounds and materials removed by skimming and animal metabolism.

SO, this begs the question of you....

Do you employ a protein skimmer 24/7? If you do, have you tried backing off? If you backed off constant skimming, did you notice any positive or negative effects on your reef? If you did, do you attribute this to your changes in skimming, or to other husbandry practices that you employ?

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this topic, in light of all the discussions we've had of late on nutrient control and coral farming...

Let's hear from you!

Keep it nice...

And Stay Wet


Scott Fellman
Unique Corals

Hello, do you still not keep your protein skimmers on 24/7? If so, how long do you keep them off for and when during the day?

 

[El Reeflero]

Found this old post. Using Bubble Magus MiniQ (excellent btw) on an IM Fusion 15 nano. Thinking of going PT (night?) on skimmer. Anyone revisit this lately? I have all softies. Big shroom tank.