protien skimming vs refugium

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ctenophors rule

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I remember reading an article (which i have been unsuccessfuly trying to find for about an hour now) that detailled and experiment to prove what was the most efficient nutrient exporter, red mangrove, chaeto, or caulerpa. I was wondering if their was a similar experiment with protien skimmers that shows how much, and what type of, waste it was removing.

a comparison of these two studies could yield the answer to the debate of "whats more efficient a skimmer or a refugium"?.

However i doubt their would be a cut and dry answer to this. their will probably be a point where (through cost/ space analysis) on one side its more efficient to skim and the other to use a refugium.


before i go on, i am wondering if anyone knows of the study i am looking for that analizes algae, or of one that analizes protien skimate?

thanks...tommy
 
Skimmer removes organics before they have a chance to break down and enter the nitrogen cycle.

Fuge and algae will consume the bi product of nitrogen cycle. no3.

so they function in different ways.

in my opinion, they complete each other. what the skimmer misses will be removed by the algae.
 
I agree with Allmost. I have a 90 gallon sps reef and utilize both. My skimmer consistantly pulls stuff and my macro is constantly in need of trimming but the water quality is always spot on.
 
Are you thinking about Dr. Ron Schmek's (if I spelled his name wrong sorry) article about nutrient export? It was in advanced aquarists a ways back.

I think he looked at calurpa, cheato, and xenia and analyzed their biomass.
 
Skimmer + Fuge is a must. I have never really heard any argument saying that they compete doing the same job. What does compete (at least a little), is the skimmer and carbon. Both remove organics as part of what they do.
 
ruprecht: thanks for the link, interesting article.


I still look at things this way:

Skimmer 200-300$ and it's really not that effective IMO, especially when you consider the cost to performance aspect of it.

Refugium 5-10$ for some chaeto, let it grow out until you get to the level of nitrates you want and then start removing some occasionly from there on. Add in a deep sand bed and let your worms and other critters feast on whatever settles in there and you are on your way to victory. I say let nature run it's course.
 
King_Richard said:
ruprecht: thanks for the link, interesting article.


I still look at things this way:

Skimmer 200-300$ and it's really not that effective IMO, especially when you consider the cost to performance aspect of it.

Refugium 5-10$ for some chaeto, let it grow out until you get to the level of nitrates you want and then start removing some occasionly from there on. Add in a deep sand bed and let your worms and other critters feast on whatever settles in there and you are on your way to victory. I say let nature run it's course.
Click to expand...

well first a note about cheato, u should be trimming it as often as it grows for best results, as the undersides will die off and give fuel to the neew growth, so when u remove it at the end, u didnt remove as much n and p. hope that made sense :)

skimmer, depends ! (skimmer in nature is beaches, and there is alot of them. ) plus u could do alot more with a skimmer.

DSB, yes, but takes time.
 
The best commercial SPS dominated reef tanks I've seen along with countless 'tank of the month' awards from this site and other have one thing in common - they all have good skimmers, but only a few are running fuges and macros.

Matter of fact, I have a hard finding 'show class' tanks anymore where the mention of cheato doesn't warrant a snicker from the owner. My favorite reef shop won't even sell it anymore while they practically give away SPS frags because they have so much of it.

The only studies I've seen about nutrient export tended to show the same thing; mangroves, caulerpa, cheato etc, are slow at fixing nitrogen and can't compete with nuisance algaes. Something like 100^ feet of mangroves to remove 10ppm of nitrogen in a 75gallon tank over a month.

Skimmers actually aren't the most ideal nutrient exporters either because they have limited success on smaller protiens. Also, nitrate produced as the by-product of the nitrogen cycle won't be affected by a skimmer.

Skimmers have other advantages. They aerate the water column something fierce and are a huge pH benefit, and they pull larger proteins out of the water that contribute to discoloration. Right now I'm having to shuffle a DIY skimmer between my tanks, and even at very low nutrient levels the skimmers pull out enough green/yellow effluent to make a big difference in watercolor.

Cheato dies when I triend it in either tank. IMHO, macro algaes a few years from now are going to be looked at like wet/drys and UGFs.

My one big gripe about skimmers are that most of the cheaper ones are junk, and nobody seems interested in building legitimate HOB styles for smaller tanks.
 
not completly true.

Skimmers are more useful, cause if you have a skimmer, u can start vodka dosing or Zeovit additives. the rest of your points about skimmers are correct except water color !!! carbon is in charge of that :)

cheato and algea growing has its own place in our hearts though, they do work, and htey work really good, but they can never take you to ULNS system, they get u to low nutrition system, but not ultra low, for ultra low, u want n cycle to be broken so no no3 is produced, rather than producing it and removing it.

the only working HOB skimmer out there is Deltec ones.
 
Allmost, I understand ya on the chaeto and I flip mine every few days but I want a sump full of chaeto so I'm currently letting it grow out until its the amount that I want.

My goal isn't a low nutrient tank infact I want just the opposite, high nutrients with a good exchange rate if that make sense (long term goal) eventually I want a 24/7 feeding into the tank in the form of phyto-plankton, maybe rotifiers and mysids. I've researched quite a few things over the years and the one thing that stands out to me is how efficient reefs are. They are estimated to be approximately 99-100% efficient (in some cases) in recycling nutrients (sorry I didn't save any links for references) now granted we don't have that volume of water to play with, but I believe we can get pretty close to this rate. I believe we can use algae to help us achieve this. Look at tanks that have been over run with hair algae, their water test great and it's crystal clear but they have the ugly hair algae growing every where.

Now algae scrubbers in my view could be the future, lol, call me crazy but I believe so. I just haven't gotten into designing one for myself yet but I will if I have enough room.

A skimmer is a cylinder mixing in microbublles in attemp to remove some waste before it has a chance to breakdown in our tank, very low tech and you could probally change a gallon of water every day to accomplish the same thing(maybe not but I thought it was kinda funny). It's just not enough bang for the buck. Now skimmers do help aerate the water but if ph is a problem then we can also just add an airstone and get the same results.

And I've been putting alot of thought into the beach comparison about skimmers (just because I used to use the same analogy for skimmers back when I used one). I don't see them working the same way anymore after observing the beaches more closely. I think the sand on the beaches is the most important part of the operation along with the cleanup crew found near the beaches edges. The water/foam washes up on the beach and gets filtered through the sand and then returns into the water and crabs, sand crabs, clams and others eat what washes up.

For the mangroves, yea, I've research them also and have noticed that you really need alot of them to make any kind of impact but there still neat.

And why do we see skimmmers on all of these tanks of the month and commercial setups, they all have one thing in common $$$$$. Now I know we all just want whats best for our tanks but I'm on a budget so I look for cheap/effective ways of doing things and also experience.

I've just never seen a skimmer ran as the main filtration unit, why is this, because it's simply not effective enough. Now I've seen tanks where they only run a skimmer, filter sock and carbon from time to time for mechanical filtration but all of these lack a dedicated fuge of descent size comparison when compared to their display tank and they also have a good amount of live rock. Thats why I run a fuge/sump thats is almost the same size of my display tank. And my now 3 month old tank that I've only done 2 water changes on continues to lower my nitrates and will more then likely be under 5ppm by this weekend which is the area that I want it in. And if your wondering, yes everything else is in check since I don't have much in there to throw my water chemistry outta wack and I am prepared to adjust accordingly if needed.

Edit: man I had alot to say, I guess I've been trying to hold it back for quite some time now, lol.
 
As your system gets more effient at export of nutrients the fuge is a relic IMO. After doing a few rounds of GFO and now solid carbon, levels are low enough where cheato won't grow. Thinking of converting fuge into a small ctriiter tank. Quality skimmer will go along way when you are always behind in maintenance.
 
If both of them fell of the face of the earth, there would still be some beautiful reef tanks out there.

No doubt!
 
first

A skimmer just reduces the bio load put on the tank but it is not a nitrate or phosphate reducer.

chaeto is a nitrate and phosphates remover.

they compliment each other and since they do different things they should not be pitted against one another.

combine both of those with a DSB and you will have a system that wont have to rely on water changes for nutrient export.
 
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