Undersized protein skimmer for 32.5G?

[ILOVEYOUHALFISH]

I have a Fluval flex 32.5 gallon with maybe 30 pounds of rock, 8 fish, a BTA, some sps but mostly soft corals. I have a bubble Magnus mini Q laying around and I was wondering if it would be possible to run it on this tank? The mini Q is rated for 20 gallons, I feed once a day, either flakes or mysis, and I am also feeding reef roids for my corals. I'm using a Fluval 207 for filtration and I have a hang on the back regium with some cheato… I plan on adding maybe 5 more fish and a couple more SPS, and soft corals

My question is would this skimmer be too small for this size tank?

 

[Hishman]

What is your reason or goal for adding the skimmer?

 

[Pod_01]

Undersized skimmer will likely skim more consistent vs. oversized skimmer.
You may end up cleaning it lot more often.
Nothing wrong with your plan.

What is the display water volume?
Subtract the rock scape…

If it is close to 20gal, that skimmer is the correct size, not undersized.

 

[ILOVEYOUHALFISH]

What is your reason or goal for adding the skimmer?

I feel like I overfeed sometimes, and I just don't want all that un eaten food ruining the water quality (for example sometimes I will feed a whole fronzen mysis cube to the BTA and the fish and sometimes there's a bit of it floating around once my pumps turn back on im just worried it'll cause issues, right now I'm changing about 8 gallons of water every two weeks and adding fresh filter floss as well

I feel like I just have a hard time eyeing how much food my fish actually need lol

 

[ILOVEYOUHALFISH]

What is your reason or goal for adding the skimmer?

I guess I could work on just being less heavy handed during feeding time

 

[Hishman]

I guess I could work on just being less heavy handed during feeding time

You may feel you are overfeeding but what do your parameters say? Is your nitrate or phosphate increasing week over week? Do your corals look full and colorful?

If your nutrients are slowly creeping up, what about instead increasing your fuge light time by 1hr. Or making sure you are staying consistent with your water change regimen.

To answer your question the undersized skimmer will function great. Over sizing can lead to over skimming and produce a more watery skimmate. Undersized you may need to rely more on other nutrient export methods like filter media, your fuge, water changes etc.

 

[ReefFanTaSea]

I have the same tank…been running it for over 4 years….I have never had a skimmer yet. Every once in awhile I reconsider…but everything is good without it so far so you may find you are ok without one as well. Your fish plan is really ambitious for the tank size potentially…8 is the most I have ever done and I feel that was doable when they were babies/smaller. My fish have been in there the whole 4 years now and have really grown quite large at this point, so space is hard to come by…lol! I may have more hardscape than you though, not sure. Just don't forget to consider their adult size….especially those pajama cardinals, they get big!

My current livestock: 2 Ocellaris clowns, 1 yellow watchman goby, a court jester goby, a flame tail blenny, and a file fish. I will add a mandarin soon and maybe a few smaller fish that swim more and hide less like shark nose gobies or cleaner wrasse, but nothing large as we are out of space. I also have about 30-40 small snails(nassarius, cerith, nerite, margarita, bumblebee), two turbos, two conch, a serpent sea star, 4 sexy shrimp, a pistol shrimp, a porcelain crab, a pom pom crab, an emerald crab, and a gagillion asterinas and copepods.
Corals are all softies and LPS, as well as about 20-30 rock flower nems.

I think a good clean up crew, good flow and some phosphate remover will be better for nutrient/detritus export for you in this case for this tank. But if you try the skimmer and like it let me know!

 

[Pod_01]

I feel like I overfeed sometimes, and I just don't want all that un eaten food ruining the water quality (for example sometimes I will feed a whole fronzen mysis cube to the BTA and the fish and sometimes there's a bit of it floating around once my pumps turn back on im just worried it'll cause issues, right now I'm changing about 8 gallons of water every two weeks and adding fresh filter floss as well

I feel like I just have a hard time eyeing how much food my fish actually need lol

Skimmers remove dissolved organics, they do not remove bits of food unless they become fine particles (for example pellets that disintegrate).

Oversized skimmers will skim as long as there are dissolved organics in water and once removed they act like oversized air stone. Wait till organics build up and skim some more and this leads to inconsistent skimming.