silly question.... feeding skimmate???

[ReefEnabler]

Hello,

This thought occured to me and I feel it might be a dumb question.

Has anybody tried target feeding corals directly with skimmate? Would that be a horribly bad idea, or would some corals get a good meal out of it?????

Ryan

 

[MCsaxmaster]

Why not just turn off the skimmer for a few hours?

 

[ReefEnabler]

sure I'm aware of that technique... I was more asking on principal... is skimmate a concentrated food source, or is it actually fouled to the point where it could harm a coral??

 

[yrema]

I don't think that's a good idea, feeding skimmate is like feeding your corals rotten food.

 

[JHemdal]

If you look through a good microscope at skimmate that has been sitting in the collection cup for more than a few hours you'll see that its filled with bacteria......probably decomposers as yrema alluded to.

Jay

 

[ReefEnabler]

ok you guys are probably right. Figured it couldn't hurt to asks but I can see it would be a terrible idea

 

[snorvich]

But as a substitution for a scotch on the rocks, it really rocks.

 

[virginiadiver69]

You need to try better scotch.

 

[liveforphysics]

I know of a comercial frag farmer who dumps half his skimmate back into the system. He said it improves growth by a signifigant amount.

I have an SPS reef with no skimmer at all. You could sorta say I dump all my skimate back into my tank. But of course it's a little different, as it never bonded to the surface of a bubble.

I know of 1 part which is in skimate. Phytoplankton. Years ago when I used to skim, I had just cleaned the skimmer cup spotless. 20 minutes later I added a culture of phytoplankton. The skimmer cup was filled with what appeared to be just about exactly the same color of green liquid which I added to the tank after about 1 hour.

Best Wishes,
-Luke