Fuge-Raw water or skimmed water

[Hurt]

I have heard a few different people say it is best for a fuge to get raw tank water from the overflow, instead of water that first is skimmed and then sent to the fuge. Could someone explain the logic in this.

To my knowledge a skimmer takes out DOC's before they can get into the ammonia cycle and thus degrade water quality further. A skimmer does not take out nitrates. While a fuge helps perform the last part of the ammonia cycle converting NO3 to N2 through a sand bed and macro's absorbing the NO3. Is this not the case?

Thanks,
BH

 

[sjm817]

Most sumps and skimmers are set up that only some of the water gets skimmed anyway. Unless you are feeding 100% of the drain water to a direct fed, recirculating skimmer, and outputting it to the fuge, it is not a big difference.

 

[Hurt]

Thanks for the reply. I understand exactly what you mean. I figure my skimmer may get 1/2 the water before it goes into my fuge, but I just don't understand why you would want to send unskimmed water to a fuge; or better yet what is the advantage of sending raw water to a fuge. Since a fuge mainly processes nitrates, and skimmers obviously don't, what is the advantage to this? I'm just lost on the reasoning as to why people think it is better to send unskimmed water to a fuge. They each perform totally different functions.

 

[Hurt]

Anyone?

 

[old salty]

The best reason I can think of for sending unskimmed water to the fuge is that most skimmers cannot effectively work under the flow rate that our overflows work at. I have a Mag12 (1200gph) pumping water through the overflows; my skimmer is rated at 210 gph for maximum effectiveness. That leaves me with 990 gph to contend with. A fuge is an excellent type of filtration system for the 990 gph and most likely takes up a lot of nutrients that the skimmer does not.