high end skimmer damages zoa?

[netfishlight]

Zoa was growing very fast in my 34G solana tank until I updated the skimmer from a Euro-Reef Nano skimmer to a Deletec MCE600 which is far overkilled for my tank volume. The tank probably has really low nutrition. Will that upgrade can damage the zoa?
My zoa colonies look not good now. some of them start to decay.

another change I made is increasing alk from 8-10 in about two days. will that cause that problem?

 

[derekdelisi]

I have had many alk swings, and that never affected my zoas.
I have used biopellets, and potentially ended up with water that was deprived of nutrients.

I'm not sure if a skimmer can deprive an aquarium, I imagine once it has nothing to skim, it just stops skimming. The problem might be whether it's healthy to reach that point.

If you've narrowed it down to those two options i'd say skimmer. But maybe i've just been lucky with alk swings.

 

[MikeandNicole]

The alk swing could be the culprit. If you think your skimmer is pulling too much out of the water, then feed more. I have a skimmer rated for 75g on a 30g tank and I have no problem with growing zoas in there.

 

[Fryman]

Turn off the skimmer for awhile. If the zoas improve, that's prolly the issue. If not then it's just a coincidence and you have another problem. Do you know the reason for the alk shift?


If your skimmer is overpowered you could put it on a timer maybe?

 

[netfishlight]

Good discussion. my ALK swing was caused by myself, i am playing with the CA/ALK balance again with the new dosing pump. It doesn't swing too much, 1 dkh a day.
I keep skimming the water, because i have an algae issue on going. It is a sort of turf algae, i increased the Mg a couple weeks ago (it is another swing, right there), the algae stopped growing, but didn't die off.
If I could, i will not stop skimmer or on timer, on/off on the pump will shorten the pump life.

 

[ReefMan Qc.]

I skim a lot with my skimmer and never had a problem with my zao. Now I'm running biopellet because I have some algue. After 2 week running the biopellet some of my zoa dont open anymore. But I want the algue to get out of my thanks. Dont know what to do ?

 

[E.intheC]

It sounds like the zoas are reacting to the alk changes, but it could also be caused by your skimmer. I'm not saying cleaner water directly, however cleaner water usually means better light penetration, and your corals are just adjusting to increased light.

 

[Tenor]

Keep this in mind the protein skimmer removed the toxic released from the corals, the organic waste and it also remove your good trace element that you added into the tank for your corals. If your skimmer removed them too fast then your tank end up with unstable water chemistry that could caused your corals closed. Try to slow the flow into the skimmer to see how they react in coulple weeks. Good luck.

 

[netfishlight]

ye, i may try to run skimmer for very dry skimmate, to see if it makes any difference.

 

[jimmy frag]

ye, i may try to run skimmer for very dry skimmate, to see if it makes any difference.

wey or dry, it will still pull out the same.

 

[derekdelisi]

wey or dry, it will still pull out the same.

What are your sources?

 

[netfishlight]

Even I have kept ALK steady, one colony is fading like this: there are some dark fuzzy stuff around the poly. Can you tell what it is? What should I do?

 

[MikeandNicole]

Pictures work wonders. Sounds like it could be algae, fungus, or a sponge but without a picture hard to tell.

 

[netfishlight]

i can try to get a closeup picture. but they are on a base rock, i can not do anything in there.