Skimmer neck cleaning, how often?

[joec]

I've had an RO Essence 130, my first skimmer, for about 5 weeks now.

How often should the neck be cleaned? Doesn't cleaning it set you back on what you were trying to get accomplished via the break in period, letting a "film" build up inside the skimmer?

 

[tupes]

Clean it when you clean your tank. I know several people that when they see a spec of algea growing In the mid section they take apart the skimmer and clean it and they have beautiful tanks.

 

[Montiman]

It is generally believed that the more you clean your skimmer the better. This is why some people purchase a neck cleaner that cleans the skimmer neck several times a day. The break in period is more about left over oils from the manufacturing process if you ask me.

One of the best ways I learned that cleaning a skimmer helps is when I worked at a LFS we had a 500 gallon coral system with 2 ASM g3 skimmers. We were supposed to clean the skimmers daily but one day we were in a rush and one of the skimmers just got dumped but the neck didn't get scrubbed. Then we did a heavy feeding the next day. The skimmer that had been cleaned the day before pulled out at least 3 times as much skim as the unit that was left the night before.

 

[Potatohead]

I have a skinny rubber spatula and clean inside the neck every 2-3 days. I don't actually remove the cup and empty it very often maybe every 2-3 weeks. I clean the actual inside of the skimmer body pretty much never because then it will have to break in again.

 

[MTBake]

I clean my entire skimmer every 2 weeks. The cup gets emptied and cleaned every other day to every three days. A clean neck produces more skimmate for me.