Live Rock in place of skimmer

[mystic7]

A very knowledgeable friend came over yesterday and looked at my skimmer. She said it's not pulling ANYTHING out of the water, there's too much air and not enough water with no way to adjust. So I was wondering, since my water quality is excellent (she tested for everything) can I get just about the same benefits as a skimmer by adding more LR?

I can/will get full credit at the LFS for this piece of junk and plan to get a skimmer later on. $329.00 will get me quite a bit of live rock, in fact almost 100 lbs of live base rock.

Is this a wise move?

 

[WaterKeeper]

Hi Mystic
<img src="/images/welcome.gif" width="500" height="62"><br><b><i><big><big>To Reef Central</b></i></big></big>

Good LR is always better than any skimmer. That said, the purpose of any skimmer is to supplement the action of the LR by removing protein and other organic waste before it starts to decompose and requires removal by the bacteria on the rock. They work hand and hand. You didn't say what brand of skimmer you currently have so I can't suggest improvements. I would spend the money on the LR, as you plan, and upgrade the skimmer later if you can't improve the operation of your current equipment.

Be sure to cure the LR outside your tank if you have livestock already in there.

 

[mystic7]

Thanks, Moe ;-)

It's a Berlin Red Sea Classic in/sump skimmer. It has an adjustment for air flow but not for water flow. It produces lots of foam which I can control the height of in the inner tube inside the collection cup, but no matter where I set it, there's never any skimmate. Also there's tubing coming out of the collection cup which constantly has a flow of clean water which I have leading back to my sump. I was told this should be. Any more advice?

 

[GMAX]

Crank up the air flow until the foaming is spilling out into the collection cup. this is called wet skimming. You may be surprised at the color and smell of this skimmate. Once you have run it this way for a couple of hours, dial it down a tad and try to just get an "ice cream cone" of foam bulging out of the top. Any protien that shows up will trigger your skimmer to bubble over. You may have to adjust your skimmer daily.

Hope this is of some help. There are better skimmers but I would not call your junk.

 

[mike89t]

How long have you been running your skimmer? It took my skimmer a couple of weeks to break in before it really started pulling out some good skimmate. I'm running an ASM G3.

If you have any livestock in the tank you should be getting some skimmate. I have 150lbs of live rock in my tank and currently only have 2 small fish in there and get a full cup of skimmate about every 3 days. We are talking the nice dark green stuff.

 

[mystic7]

The tanks been running for 7 weeks. Even at the beginning when I made the stupid mistake of throwing 3 fish in there (yellow tang, orange shoulder tang and a flame angel) there was still no skimmate. And they ate like pigs. The Orange Shoulder Tang was dropping waste like he was bombing London. Still nothing. I also have 80 lbs of LR for the past 2 weeks. I currently only have a juvenile Niger Trigger in the tank.

I've tried what you said, gmax, and believe me, this thing can pump out foam all day, and it stays white and odorless.

 

[GMAX]

skimmer

skimmer

Its really hard to diagnose without seeing it in action.

How big is the tank? 80 of rock is not a huge amount so I am doubt ing that all detritus is being taken care of by the biolgical agents on the rock. What kind of nitrate readings are your getting when you test?

 

[javajaws]

I wouldn't suggest getting more rock...in my opinion you would be better off with a bigger/better skimmer. Adding more live rock would just add to the bioload for which your current skimmer is apparently not setup to handle. Additionally, its possible that you do not have enough flow in the tank and that most of the detritus filled water is not even making it into the skimmer. I'd start there unless you really think you have enough flow.

 

[mystic7]

gmax, 180 gal. currently with 0 nitrites/nitrates. The tank has already spiked so it's not 0 because it's new or anything.

javajaws you may have hit on a possible cause. Water flow is currently 4 or 5x. Everytime I brush by a rock or slightly disturb the substrate while cleaning the glass I get a plume of waste and it's not aragonite dust.

 

[mike89t]

If you are getting clear skimmate you may have the water level set to high. Try lowering the bubble level so you don't get clear skimmate. If that doesn't work try raising the Skimmer slightly in the sump by setting it on something.