Rate my Skimmate?

I've never had a protein skimmer before... but I figured I should probably get one and I am thus far very happy and semi-disgusted with what it's pulling out of the water. Every 8-12 hours the collection cup has this in it:


To my naive eyes, it looks like good skimmate... but being that I've only owned a skimmer for 3 days, I'd like feedback. It's the Hydor Slim-Skim Nano... and I'm trying to not have a wet skim (low bubbles and high collection cup). The water does look a bit cleaner (never knew how much crud was in it). I'm also working on trying to haul in an algae issue (new reefcleaners pack in the mail tomorrow)... so hopefully the skimmer will help out with that.

 

The best way to tell is by tasting it. Okay, don't do that, LOL!!!

Your skimmate looks exactly how mine looks, a disgustingly fine, greenish-brown color. As far as skimmate goes, the darker the better, but yours looks pretty good. As to the algae issue, as your skimmer exports waste from your tank it should help with your algae woes. If it does not, you should consider running something like Chemipure Elite which will absorb/adsorb phosphate, which will also help to starve the algae.

 

I'm running chaeto in the back, purigen, carbon, small feedings lol... I still ended up with the algae issue. I think mostly because I didn't really have a good way to remove those excess nutrients. Is the skimmer supposed to pull that much crud out every 8 hours? It just seems crazy... like the water seems pretty clean, then that comes out of it 2-3 times a day.

I should mention, the tank went skimmer-less for almost a year. Water changes can only do so much.

 

Looks good. A touch on the wet side, but good. If you had a higher end skimmer, you would be fully disgusted with what it pulls out! I don't know if you can adjust that skimmer, but try getting the bubbles to just reach the cup, not overflow into them so much. This will produce a drier skimmate. I've found too wet, and at that rate every 8-12 hours as you stated, can affect salinity on smaller systems, as you pull out salt water, and add fresh with top off.

 

Being a Biocube 29, I am limited in my options for skimmers that will fit in the back. Salinity is fine thus far, as I don't keep topping off with fresh (since the skimmer is taking out salt). I measure salinity just fine so it's easy to keep in check. Will it continue to pull stuff like this out or will it start clearing?

 

I pull out about a cup every 24 hours. I have a cheapo skimmer and it pulls very wet, but it is always that greenish-brown color. So, even though it will eventually slow down a little, you will be pulling out copious amounts of crap like that daily. With that said, imagine if you weren't using your skimmer, what the water quality would be like.

 

I didn't have a skimmer the first year of my Biocube... sadly I know what the water quality was like. My RBTAs are loving the cleaner water.

 

is that DOTA in the background? lol

 

I think that's as good as your going to get that skimmer to produce. Everyone's tank conditions are entirely different due to fish volume, feeding etc. To know if what youre pulling out is good or not is subjective imo. The quality of the skim I would say is good based on your situation.

The only thing I can think of is to create a 10 gallon sump with overflow and set a larger skimmer in there. You could create a larger refugium as well. Dont know if thats in the cards for you or not but just a thought if you want to improve your skim. If your corals are happy I dont see a reason to change your set up.

 

League of Legends

The corals took a pretty good hit with the algae break out and with me being in my final semester of PhD coursework... I sort of let it get out of hand. The anemones are loving the skimmer, however. I'm not sure if I'd want to build a special sump set up for an AIO unit like the Biocube as it sort of "ruins" it for me. If it skims a bit wet, it skims a bit wet... I can always add water back in. And it seems to be pulling out a lot of stuff.