Thinking about getting a protein skimmer

BanZI29 · Nov 13, 2020

so been reading up on protein skimmers and I am thinking it might be time to get one.
I have 25g tank with only LPS and softies, a condey anen. and a brittle SF.
The condey and SF I feed shrimp pieces by hand twice a week and the corals I feed reef roids also twice a week and everyone gets fed at the same time.

My water always seems to have a "haze" to it. I have done a 10g water change recently.

All my levels are typically in the good range on the average, and I do have a fuge and a small CUC (I do need more snails and crabs thou)

Anyway I put up pix of my filtration setup and wanted to see if you all think a skimmer is a good idea
Please and thank you

lapin · Nov 13, 2020

Is that a bag of carbon in the chamber? If not, you could try carbon. It does seem to polish water for a period of time til its pores get clogged

BanZI29 · Nov 13, 2020

lapin said:
Is that a bag of carbon in the chamber? If not, you could try carbon. It does seem to polish water for a period of time til its pores get clogged

yes it is. I have 5 small bags of chemipure, 1 bag of GFO, and just put in a bag of purigen. the chemipure and GFO is 1 month in and the pruigen is 1 week in.

BanZI29 · Nov 13, 2020

StlSalt · Nov 13, 2020

If you have carbon and it's still "hazy" you might consider a UV light. Not sure what others will say but I found a UV light really cleared up my water if the haze is caused by extra bacteria in the water column. Really depends on what is causing the cloudiness. A skimmer takes extra organic matter out of the water before they break down and become the nasty inorganic phosphate that algae like. While extra organic matter can make your water yellow, I would think the carbon would take care of that. Since you don't have fish and don't feed a lot, I think a UV light might be more what you need.