ati skimmer

[King-Kong]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10603105#post10603105 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by RichConley
PE mysis is like DIY-oil slick

Understatement!

I would rinse and re-rinse them and it would still destroy my skimmer for a long time. No matter what...

Do you know if Hikari mysis is better? I actually used it for a bit and forgot if it was oily or not. Because it was so tiny, however, I couldnt really rinse it without losing 1/2 of it down the drain.

 

[RichConley]

yeah, I havent found anything else thats nearly as bad as PE. I, personally dont like washing my food, it takes away all the good stuff that the corals eat.

The hikari is better IMO. I still like the home made mush best though.


pito, no, I'm running a hacked NW200/DIY mess.

 

[Creetin]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10603205#post10603205 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by King-Kong
Understatement!

I would rinse and re-rinse them and it would still destroy my skimmer for a long time. No matter what...

Do you know if Hikari mysis is better? I actually used it for a bit and forgot if it was oily or not. Because it was so tiny, however, I couldnt really rinse it without losing 1/2 of it down the drain.

I use it and its not too bad still oily, I also use sanfransisco brand and that is the best out of all of them. JMO

My BM 250 runs the same as the day i got it. About 2 mos ago i had a carbon chunk stuck in the airline and slowed down performance till i cleaned the skimmer and found it..

 

[Aqua Keepers]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10603233#post10603233 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by RichConley
yeah, I havent found anything else thats nearly as bad as PE. I, personally dont like washing my food, it takes away all the good stuff that the corals eat.

The hikari is better IMO. I still like the home made mush best though.


pito, no, I'm running a hacked NW200/DIY mess.

Ohh, I was just wondering because I'm debateing the 200 or 250 for a 125 BB SPS that I'm building. I plan on a high bioload, but worry that the 250 wont skim right. I been folowing KK,s threads as he has the 250 on a 90g. KK keep me informed buddy.

 

[hahnmeister]

pjf, in my last response, I had a hard time responding... 'its complicated' is the best I could think of at the time...lol.

I think the best way to summarize my position on short vs. tall is that taller skimmers are more 'reliable' or 'consistent'. I think that either height will be able to perform well enough to reduce the DOC level of a tank rather well, but that there is a threshold that once the DOC level drops below that a tall skimmer can still perform, and a shorter one will stop.

I would cite the function of freshwater skimmers as proof.

 

[pjf]

You may have hit the “nail on the head” with your observation that taller skimmers tend to be more reliable and consistent. Ever since UCanDoIt touted her favorite skimmer, an H&S A150-2001, as one of the least “finicky,” I wondered if its height or dwell time may be a factor.

If your head doesn’t already hurt pondering these matters, there is a thread (“Comparative Organics Test for Skimmers”) in the Chemistry forum that discusses using a DOC concentration test to measure skimmer performance. The idea is that a skimmer should be measured by how low it can reduce the DOC concentration in an aquarium. Any skimmer can pull out gunk from a cesspool but a superior skimmer will lower the DOC levels more than the rest of the pack.

 

[klam114]

Just my 2 cents, I have seen a Bubbleking 500 on a 240g, a H&S A300 on a 180g, and Bubblemaster 250 on a 120g that didn't do as well after the first 3 or 4 months of a monster performance. The severely overkill size just can't pickup the remainning organics still in the water. But downsizing to a smaller well matched skimmer to the display tank size performs consistently.

With all that said, I don't think the ATi BM is a poor design, just that one has to use the right size skimmer for their setup and don't severely overkill on skimmer capacity as you won't get better performance, maybe poorer than if properly sized. I have no scientific evidence to support my objective observation of the large high performance skimmers on too small of a tank.

In the above 3 incidences, the BK250/300 on the 240g, A150/A200 on the 180g and the BM160/200 on the 120g would have been more than adequate and would have probably gotten much better long term consistent performance. A simple solution, feed a dam lot more! :lol:

 

[hahnmeister]

Well, the Holmes-Farley Model doesnt account for this as well as the Escobal model. Although they are similar, and do overlap in many ways, Escobal cites that bubbles just need enough time in the water (or rather, time before they hit the turbulent neck and draining period) to attract certain proteins and keep a hold of them. So for a shorter skimmer, there may just be certain proteins that the bubbles in these skimmers cant capture.

An alternative would be to have a taller, narrower neck. It would seem that if the proteins are draining before they can be collected, then creating a foam head that is very tall would mean that the drainage would have to pass over many other bubbles, hopefully calm enough to be attracted and be 're-collected'.

Either way... taller = more reliable in my book.

 

[pjf]

DOC Test for Skimmer Performance?

DOC Test for Skimmer Performance?

I agree that freshwater skimmers tend to be tall with modest air intake. This can be discerned from the specifications of the Schuran freshwater skimmers (http://www.schuran.com/freshwater/abschaeumer_e.html). There must be a lesson here that saltwater skimmers can adopt.

I think that one measure of a skimmer is its ability to skim relatively soluble dissolved organic compounds (DOC). It is easy for any skimmer to skim insoluble particulate matter. As we move down the solubility scale to DOC’s such as Gelbstoff (yellowing compounds), skimming gets harder. Are you aware of any skimmers that can remove Gelbstoff?

I believe that there may be a simple way to test the DOC solubility level to which a skimmer can filter. A controlled method of comparing two skimmers will be to take seawater or water from a water change and place it into two tanks. Place a skimmer on each tank with a small circulation pump and measure the DOC concentration in both tanks periodically.

A test for a single DOC type may be sufficient because the ability to skim a DOC of a specific solubility also implies the ability to skim DOC’s with less solubility. Suppose the Salifert Organics test can measure the concentration of a DOC with solubility K. A skimmer that can skim that DOC can also skim DOC’s with solubility k < K. If skimmer A can lower the concentration of that DOC more than skimmer B, then skimmer A is superior to B.

Of course, if the Salifert Organics kit measures a DOC that any skimmer can skim or a DOC than no skimmer can skim, it will be hard to differentiate the skimmers. Hopefully, the test kit will measure a DOC type that is moderately challenging to skim and will not be too easily degraded by bacteria.

Such a test will be superior to:
(1) Placing a Remora in cesspool and claiming that it pulls more gunk than a Bubble King in the Monterey Bay aquarium.
(2) Using a wet skimmer to demonstrate that it can drain a tank faster than a dry skimmer.

 

[Roland Jacques]

My 2 cents,
We (US market) have re-rated these BM skimmers to fit what we think a skimmer should be rated at (base on?). Then we redesign them to get darker drier skimmate (as if this is a better way to skim or a indication of a better skimmer). Then we wonder why they don’t act (I'm not saying perform) like what we expect them to.

Could it be that they were rated appropriately from the Mfg?
ATI said the BM 250 was for up to 800 gallons....
Reefgeek says 500
We put them on our 180s


I think if you want to get continual dry dark skimmate out of the BM 250 on a smaller aquarium you can do that buy steping/tappering down the neck to 4".

Just a thought.

 

[Roland Jacques]

Han,
I love your thoroughness with your thoughts. Your post are awesome to read (and im still trying to digest all of it). But I’m still in the Oliver & Holmes camp. In that dwell while important, has been over-rated in the past by many. A well thought out test could put this one to rest. Maybe not.

Pjf,
More things to consider with your test to judge a skimmer.
At first the high interface less dwell skimmer would be ahead with lower DOCs. I believe your test would later show in the long run that a skimmer with more dwell would "eventually" pull out more from your test samples. BUT if we continually added waste water to your samples, with less and less time between additions of the waste,(like a living eco dose) you would see the " more interface less dwell skimmer" pulling ahead. So...

I think time plays in with at least one more factor.
If you take clean water in a test tank and run your skimmer on that tank. Then add old skimmate to the tank. Just by looking at the color of the test water you’ll notice that your skimmer will not take all that skimmate out (But it did the first time from your reef). The test water will remain very stained (at least it did for me in the few tests i did). I‘d say maybe 40% color remained in the test water even after the skimmer was runing for weeks. So I think the sooner your waste sees interface with a bubble the better.

Skimmers buy themselves don’t come close to removing all the waste we want out of our tanks no matter how long the dwell is. There is only so much that sticks to a bubble. So how much is that extra well worth?

This is where we make our judgments as to what is more important in a skimmer for our aquarium.

 

[hahnmeister]

I dont know that Holmes-Farley said dwell time is 'overrated' exactly. I think many people read what he said and took it that way, but I also remember him saying that as the bubble spends more time in the skimmer, surfactants with less of an attraction to the bubble surface will be replaced by more attracted ones. This doesnt say that the skimmer is collecting more or less at this point, but it does say that on a taller skimmer (or one with better air/water interface, or more bubble dwell time) the bubbles in the neck will have a layer with DOC/surfactants/proteins that will have a stronger attraction than on a shorter, or too turbulent skimmer. These bubbles will be easier to collect, drain less, not pop as easily, etc.

Thats how I think Escobal and Holmes actually overlap in their theories.

Now when the DOC levels in the water go low... which will allow a each bubble a better chance at getting skimmate collected? A short one with lots of air? OR a taller one with not as much air? It would seem that spreading out the surfactants across more bubbles would cause them to pop easier in the neck... like a soap bubble w/o enough soap. A taller skimmer with less air would give each bubble more of a chance to get its surface filled with proteins before hitting the collection cup... I mean... what does it mean to the water if it interacts with one bubble for 4 feet, or two bubbles for 2' over 2x the area? Either way, what proteins are in it will get attracted to the bubble. It shouldnt make a difference to the water... it would make a difference to the bubble however.

Maybe what makes my views different, or how I see the various 'different camps' like Escobal vs. Farley actually being very similar is that Ive always thought of skimming from the perspective of the bubble, not the water, if you follow.

I know dwell time isnt everything... its just one of many things in the great balancing act like turbulence, air & water density, interface, directions of travel (co current vs counter current), volume of air, etc. I just think its something that some makers have been throwing out the window all together and its why some skimmers just stop working after 6-9 months of use.

 

[agent6473]

Did you check the air intake? My bubblemaster air intake clogs often causing it to stop skim. Instead of a giant convo of skimmer physics, how about checking the obvious first. By the way, my BM 200 is the best skimmer Ive seen.

 

[klam114]

Agent, Remove some of the filter floss from the silencer so that it is not tight against the top air hole. This will prevent it from clogging. If you ran into the same as myself, the filter floss too close to the air hole at the top of the silencer is clogging the air hole with dust.

 

[kysard1]

Tunze who has been making skimmers longer than anyone says the opposite of what you are proposing. There is an equilibrium, with a taller skimmer as the water gets cleaner toward the top, the equilibrium pulls the DOC's off the surface of the bubble.

 

[King-Kong]

A clean bubble pulls a lot more dirt out of the water than a dirty one... doesnt it?

 

[kysard1]

correct and a dirty bubble can actually lose its dirt in clean water. It is an equilibrium. Too tall a skimmer and the water at the top is too clean for the bubbles to hold their surface scum.

Very similiar to running a skimmer on a new tank or low nutrient one. But by using a short skimmer you can force the scrubbing to occur and pull the skimmate before equilibirum would force the loss of the surface scum.

That's Tunze's theory.

 

[Roland Jacques]

Wow, you can learn allot about what going on in your kids life sometimes when push the paste button and these pops ups.

i need money quick and i am selling a lot of stuff, bass, amp, snowboard (never benn ridden), wake board, paintball gun (E- ranger), nitro tank (2), hoppers, anything i have that i don't use any more I'm trying to sell. alarm clock, xbox 1, bean bags, and more message me if you want anything.

-Travis-

Guess i need to play spy and find out what going on here. Any prays welcome. Im hoping this is for a newer car.

Kysard,
Do you have a link to Tunze's writings. sounds like this camp is supported pretty solidly.

 

[hahnmeister]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10616203#post10616203 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by kysard1
correct and a dirty bubble can actually lose its dirt in clean water. It is an equilibrium. Too tall a skimmer and the water at the top is too clean for the bubbles to hold their surface scum.

Very similiar to running a skimmer on a new tank or low nutrient one. But by using a short skimmer you can force the scrubbing to occur and pull the skimmate before equilibirum would force the loss of the surface scum.

That's Tunze's theory.

That theory doesnt make sense because according to it, then the top half of a taller skimmer would end up being a high concentration in the water of skimmate (all the stuff that 'fell back off of the bubbles due to some type of osmosis I suppose). So then, because the water would be 'so much cleaner at the top' it would end up reversing itself, no? On a typical recirc/countercurrent, the top of the skimmer would have a high accumulation of skimmate from all that stuff that falls off... so it would balance out and work just as it should again.

 

[Wryknow]

When talking about performance I think that the skimmers ability to remove a sudden surge in proteins quickly is vital and at least as imnportant as what the minimum DOC the skimmer can sustain, as long as that level is low enough to not cause harm to my corals. The biological filtration is sufficient to deal with a certain amount of DOC after all. I bought a BM 250 because of the skimmer's ability to deal with say, an anemone dying, quickly enough that I don't get a cascading die-off start that would wipe out my tank. A smaller skimmer with a taller neck might maintain a lower average DOC but fail to react quickly enough to a problem. The balance is tough though. Even accounting for the need for a quick response time I still believe that the BM250 is more skimmer than I need right now (but it will be perfect for the 500 gallon tank I need to convince my wife would look perfect in our house )