Do you sock it or skim it?

I gues it comes down to a question of philosophy,and what each are prepare to do and how he sees each job. The cleaning of a sock every other day using a method or another costing " bleach, soap, power, time" vs letting the machine do the bulk of the work and once an a while cleaning the sump which is made and met to collect some residue than you can clean once a month, if any if you have bough the proper skimmer and used the sock to collect what the skimmer who's working 24/24/7 days a week, on power, and if missed by it the sock will catch at the exits of the skimmer. It may be also a question of trust in the machine you buy and its capacity. On other site the highest number goes to the last choice of the survey. Most don't use a sock at all, and i dare anybody to tell me that their tank suffer's more in the parameters figure or else most of these people would use a sock. They like me don't want the hassel of a dirty sock to clean all the time. I use one like i said to pick up what the skimmer might miss. As for the sump, it seems that sock or no sock , people vacum the sump at one point. Which , when needed i do, but not on a schedule of day by day or even week , months if needed. I like to leave some stuff to nature, like those who don't do water changes for months and still have beautifull tanks and have great parameters. Each tank has its own beat and after a while you know which routine work with your tank , the best. Like they say their's no absolute in this hobby and thank god for that ,lol. But it nice to see what others are doing, thanks for your inputs. That was the point of the thread even if some think talking about this subject is waste of time .....

 

Great reply. Thx.

 

+1 People used to get all over me for not sticking to the typical by the book tank maintenance on my 55gal, and I never had any problems. Now with my new 75gal I need to figure out what works best for it.

 

Extraordinary cleaning needed.

For cleaning jobs if i have to do one in the tank after moving things, with lots of debris or exceptional circumstances,while cleaning I use a sock at the discharge valve to the sump. I also use them over the power heads when cleaning. The power heads suck up the debris that I stir up with a turkey baster under the rocks and the power heads blow it into the socks. This quickly removes the debris from the display tank instead of swirling it around the aquarium endlessly until it reaches the overflow and into the sock in the sump. This minimizes the debris from resettling on the live rock etc.. It also shortens the cleaning time.I then vacuum the rock and surface of the sand.I remove the socks once the floating debris becomes unnoticeable. The Idea came from JOE and i'm sharing it ,because its an excellent idea.

 

I've learned a lot by reading this thread.

 

Thanks, thats the thing that any thread can hopes to achieve.

....a good rating would help the thread lol.

 

I use a combination of all the methods. I dont believe one way is the right way. I like to have my sock catch the majority and have the skimmer pick up remaining particles.

 

Algae Scrubber?

 

This is why I use a sock. This is after about 5 days. Sock is completely white when I put it in and always comes out looking like this. I also run a skimmer that pulls good and a ATS that grows good. I feed the tank a lot, though.

 

ATS or Algae Turf Scrubber. A medium often made of some type of screen with a source of lighting and flow to allow for the growth of different types of common algae such as GHA (green hair algae) film algae. Usually found in the sump area. Idea being that a healthy growth of algae on the ATS will out compete the display for phosphates and nutrients there by reducing unwanted algae growth in the display. If illuminated at night when the display lights are off it may also contribute to stable pH.