Dual Skimmers: Fantasy or Reality?

I was just wondering if anyone has specific knowledge or experience about/with using two protein skimmers at the same time in the same tank? This is just out of sheer curiosity - but thought it was a worthwhile point to ponder.

 

I don't imagine two skimmers would be all that effective. Maybe 120% as effective as one skimmer, at most, with the potential for them to be less effective than a single skimmer.

 

I'm running 2 ramora aquac skimmers because I had them and their too small for my set up. I don't see any problems with it and don't see why one would be less efficient, they both seem to work just as well as when they where on individual tanks. With that said I also don't see any reason for this other than having 2 skimmers already and it's a bit of a pta. I plan on getting one bigger skimmer when I can, so it's simpler and I don't have to clean 2 cups.

 

I used two 24x6 airstone skimmers that were gravity fed from overflows back in the day on a 40 breeder FOWLR. Worked great once I put a float on the sump for evap. Overkill? Maybe but back then my roomate and I threw massive amounts of food and fish in there - worked for us.

 

Yeah - that's kinda what I was thinking - only margnially more effective than a single skimmer. I was just thinking I might be able to squeeze two smaller skimmers in my sump, and maybe not have to go with the external fuge/skimmer sump - but the thought of adding more volume and having an isolat-able fuge is also pretty cool.

 

I did the remote fuge and I have a large sump also. My system has about 112 gallons, with the DT holding about 60 gallons. I think if you have the room this is definitely the way to go.

 

I have seen to skimmers run on the same tank a coralife 125 and a euroreef 80. The weaker one stops pulling stuff, in this instance the euroreef stopped pulling stuff.

 

This is old but whether its feasible or not and how effective it is depends on how the sump system is setup. If its setup for dual skimmers, then it works as you would expect. But, if the sump setup is for a single skimmer, then adding a second skimmer after the first is just a waste of the skimmer.

When I say the sump system being setup for it, imagine a tank with two drains, each drain goes into its own side of a sump setup, where it hits a skimmer first, then goes on along to either return to the tank or join the water from the other drain. In that scenario (or something similar) then you can run two and gain the benefits of having two skimmers.

 

That is interesting and how my setup was. I has two HOB overflows with a drain in each HOB going to a separate skimmer. Worked very well.

 

Well now dual overflows - each feeding a separate skimmer makes total sense - they dont even know the other skimmer is there. The other post about the weaker skimmer being rendered useless makes sense as well if both skimmer are in the same sump - or same feedwater.

That puts this one to bed I feel.