Plankton safe skimmer

[victor_c3]

I'm planning on setting up a non-photosynthetic coral/sea-fan tank in the near future and I'm looking for a protein skimmer that is relatively plankton friendly as I plan on keeping a large ammount of live plankton and zooplankton in the water column at all times.

I looked through the instruction manual for the 9021 protein skimmer that is available online on the tunze website and I noticed on page 41 it is mentioned:

"The skimmer draws in 5 per cent of aquarium water (about 60 l/h (16 USgal/h)) and thus is gentle to plankton, making the setting ideal in particular for breeding tanks"

I believed that advertised tank volume the 9021 can work with is 528 gallons.

If I set the 9021 protein skimmer to this 5% setting, would it be able to handle a heavily fed NPS tank in the 120-180 gallon range? If not, does Tunze offer a skimmer that would be appropriate for this application?

Thanks,

Victor

 

[rvitko]

This is true, with the shutter door closed the 9021 is forced to work as a passive diffusion skimmer. The water recirculates and through the slots and various openings by osmosis, the proteins and cellulose diffuse in to the cleaner water circuit of the skimmer. This is how it is plankton safe. However, the safest and best model for your set up would be the 9211, this is the original Tunze skimmer design and 100% of the water recirculates.

The rating of 528gph is essentially for a FOWLR tank, take off 20% for soft corals, 40% for a mixed reef, 60% for an SPS tank and 70% for a high fish load with SPS. I would say that since these corals are plankton feeders and some are chemotrophic and like higher nutrient levels, I would go with the 20% deduction.

 

[victor_c3]

Thanks for the help and the reply and the recommendation for the 9211 (which is the direction I'm probably going to go with at this point).

Now I'm just curious, but the 5% or 90% settings on the 9021 skimmer wouldn't affect the skimmer's advertised max capacity or ability to skim a tank? (i.e. I wouldn't have to take the recirculation setting into account when selecting the 9011, 9016, or 9021?)

Thanks,

Victor

 

[rvitko]

It responds slower for sure. Basically what it might remove in an hour if fully open could take several hours in passive mode. It generally isn't an issue unless there is a catastrophe like an anemone dying or some large decaying animal.