skimmer in a sps tank, need good input, please.

[toothman]

I hope this got your attention and that you have time to read this post!!!



I am always looking to increase the efficiently of my system. Looking at skimmer performance seems to mystify me. My bubble king 3000 appears to work very well. But where is all that brown sludge coming from, I am referring to the weekly quart of brown muck fellow reefers display. Here is what I can not figure out is how can you skim all that crud, it seems to be 50 times the amount of product you are putting in: the food. how does:

1/10 of a ounce in ======> produce 1 pound out.

Being a man of science every chemical equation must be balanced. TWO MOLES IN > TWO MOLES OUT.

(possibly I am not compensating for photon energy.)

One explanation is that a new skimmer will remove a lot of latent muck in the system. Or there is so much crud in the dsb that it continually leaches out. ( I do appreciate how well dsb works)

Possibly I feed my tank way too little, equivalent of 6 cubes a week of food for 15 small med fish. (just a note, by no means are the fish thin, they are at optimal health).

The last and least likely is that us reefers have discovered a new energy source that may solve the world energy shortage.

My bk immediately skims out the scrapings from the glass with in a hour. This machine foams like no other skimmer I have ever seen.

THIS IS MUCH QUICKER THAN MY OLD ETSS SKIMMER.


It also produces skimmate on the lid and rim in a week. The water appears clear. The sps seem to grow fine but I want to have the best for my animals.

I only have 20 lbs of sand in a 265 gal and 12k gph turn over. Possibly there is just nothing to skim out. Possibly the 20% weekly water changes affect it.

I got a good suggestion from moon pod to skim wetter and keep the salinity around 1.024.

I hope to get some input from RC users and want to say that I am not trying to promote one style of tank husbandry and I truly believe there are several methods that will work well. I also believe each method has some short comings. I am also not trying to specifically talk about BK skimmers just in general how skimmers work.

Ed

Hobby

 

[thefuture]

good thread. i also want to know. your title kind of doesnt fit the thread tho, it looks more like you are looking for a skimmer. lol

 

[secrest]

Lol, yeah I thought you were looking for a skimmer too. Im definatley interested in what others have to say about this, good thread!

 

[toothman]

I have been doing some more research on the subject. It seems most people think bubble kings are one of the best skimmers, same as what I thought when I purchased it 8 months ago.

With this said, there may be production of skimmate from the co 2 released from the ca reactor that can produce algae.

I still have not got any specific answer if light energy will add anything.

It also seems most people feed their tank more than 6 cubes a week. Like a lot more.

Keep on thinking!

 

[RCS]

I think you may be looking the simple explanation: those of us that wet skim are undoubtedly removing a good portion of water as well.

 

[cvye]

3000? Man, that MUST pull out alot!

I have a 150g stock tank in my basement that I NEVER feed, and that thing is the gnarliest, grossest, algae-ridden cess-pool of a tank, and it has no fish, just live rock and soft corals.

My 180g tank upstairs is pristine, with hardly any scum being formed by my PM XL 2, and contains SPS, soft corals, and 3 feet of fish who are fed 2-3 times a day with about an ounce of food (dry weight).

My working hypothesis as of now is that if you have good coralline coverage, that is absorbing alot of nutrients and making it harder for phosphates to be leached out of the rocks. Whereas, if you have an green algae mess (like I do right now in the stock tank), the Derbesia will convert phosphates from the rocks into algae tissue that seems to more easily exchange with the water - hence more food for a skimmer.

The "clean" tank upstairs might be accumulating phosphate, but it's all locked up in the coralline and stony coral skeletons.

 

[poknsnok]

all the living thinks in your tank produce waste... rocks have bacteria on them, your corals produce waste, pods.. ets ect...... I also scrape what seems like 1/2 pound of thick sludge from the inside of my deltec every other day. think of your tank as 1 big organism... that might explain it

 

[NoSchwag]

FWIW I think I actually evap. more than I remove by wet skimming.

 

[RCS]

Oh, I know I do...at least 1.5-2g per day evap from my 155.

 

[RichConley]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7051024#post7051024 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by poknsnok
all the living thinks in your tank produce waste... rocks have bacteria on them, your corals produce waste, pods.. ets ect...... I also scrape what seems like 1/2 pound of thick sludge from the inside of my deltec every other day. think of your tank as 1 big organism... that might explain it

You can't think of it like that, its unscientific. Nothing produces anything. Animals merely convert things. That was his point, where is this stuff coming from.

From what I can see, you've got mainly 2 sources of incoming carbon, food, and CO2. Possibly some from your RO, but should be negligible. Most calcium addition is going into coral structure...

so my answer would be, its coming out of the air. It seems to me that the corals in their uptake of nitrogen and CO2, along with light, would fix these things, and that would pull more atmospheric into the water. The corals then excrete metabolic byproducts, and hense you have skimmate.

 

[poknsnok]

I have read many posts from a marine biologist on this site that explains the tank, specifically the sand bed as its own organism. he went by the handle "BOMBER". very well respected. all reef tank consists of all types of life and all that life produces waste. the bacteria in the rocks produced copious amounts of detritus. ever blow the rocks off with a power head and see the amount of waste on them??.. I see where you are coming from.."1 in 1 out" but the tank is an organism as a whole... .. a 500 pound one when you factor sand and rocks. I do believe that.

 

[RichConley]

poksnok, its not producing. Its simple conservation of matter. Its coming from somewhere, it either was put into the tank at a previous time, or is being put in now. Theoretically, if it was a rock shedding issue, if you waited long enough, the skimmer woudl stop pulling anything, because it would have pulled everything out. Theres no magic here.

You think that waste when you powerhead blast is just appearing? thats processed food. Thats matter thats come down the food chain adn is now sitting on your rocks. It didnt just appear.

 

[poknsnok]

your forgetting the conversion of energy"energy can neither be created or destroyed, just changed" ... we are adding enough to our tanks and have added enough to produce this large amount of waste... ever cure live rock?? did you add any food to what you were curing?? no... yes much of what is skimmed out is die off but lots is just from the life on the rock just living. dont forget the photosynthetic waste producers in your tank.. they do not need added food yet they still produce waste. No food and matter doesnt just magically appear.. I know that... but i will insist that you need to look at your tank as a very large organism that produces large amounts of waste. but i agree... the catalyst for this waste doesnt just appear...we add in the form of food and light

 

[RichConley]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7051908#post7051908 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by poknsnok
your forgetting the conversion of energy"energy can neither be created or destroyed, just changed" ... we are adding enough to our tanks and have added enough to produce this large amount of waste... ever cure live rock?? did you add any food to what you were curing?? no... yes much of what is skimmed out is die off but lots is just from the life on the rock just living. dont forget the photosynthetic waste producers in your tank.. they do not need added food yet they still produce waste. No food and matter doesnt just magically appear.. I know that... but i will insist that you need to look at your tank as a very large organism that produces large amounts of waste. but i agree... the catalyst for this waste doesnt just appear...we add in the form of food and light

The waste during cooking rock comes from waste previously put in the rock. Its all previous food. Things dont just produce waste by living, they eat food, process it, and excrete a marginally smaller amount of food.

Do you realistically think anything in your tank is converting energy to matter? I highly doubt it. There still needs to be a way that carbon and nitrogen are being added to the tank. Thats either food, the air, or the topoff water.


Things can not produce waste without having food input.

 

[poknsnok]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7051965#post7051965 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by RichConley
[
Do you realistically think anything in your tank is converting energy to matter? I highly doubt it. There still needs to be a way that carbon and nitrogen are being added to the tank. Thats either food, the air, or the topoff water.


Things can not produce waste without having food input. [/B]

yes. photosynthetic chemical reactions in corals or other organisms that are strictly photosynthetic produce thier own food by converting the suns energy to useable food, which in turn contributes to the creation of waste. the symbiotic algae in most corals aid in the keeping the coral alive. if Im not mistaken carbon is the most abundant element anywhere and binds to just about everything. so its everywhere. the beginning of this thread questioned why if 1 cube is put in, 2 cubes of waste appear. more waste appears because of the rock, sand, fish, symbiotic algae, exclusively photosynthetic organisms etc.. all critters in the tank, producing waste. if you add 150lbs of rock to your tank you have added a very large waste producing component to your tank... it will produce more net waste than the net food added.. period.. thats what i believe...

perhaps we need the input of an expert

 

[RichConley]

poksnok, photosynthesis does not create anything. It attaches a phosphurus atom to ADP to make ATP. ATP is used to bond other things together, and then reduced to ADP. The carbon/nitrogen/etc has to come from somewhere.

Now, as to carbon being everywhere in a reef, why are the vodka people trying to supplement carbon? Because they think its carbon limited.

If you want to think of it in laymans terms, photosynthesis basically creates mortar. The animals still need to get the bricks from somewhere. Where are the bricks coming from is the question?

I'm actually curious, because I agree, I take out WAY more than what I put in. THe thing is, that extra matter is not coming from photosynthesis, it may be a biproduct of photosynthesis, but the raw materials have to be going in somewhere.

 

[poknsnok]

not familiar with why vodka is added.. I was under the imperssion it was added by reefers who wanted to increase oxidation. i dont use it . carbon dioxide finds its way into the system.. and is often a problem if system isnt vented properly. nitrogen if I a not mistaken is related in some fashion to a phosphate mechanism and believe me. im a novice at chemistry at best.
I said photosynthesis is a catalyst. the raw materials are already in the tank.
Ill say again that it isnt that much of a mystery...the sand,rock, pods etc etc and produce waste... more than we put in...
I see what you mean .. a bit mystifying as to why we get more waste than food we put in.. I agree.. but absolute scientific proof as to why we get that.. i dont have, Im just comfortable with the idea of seeing my rock and sandbed as organisms in thier own right.. the biggest ones in the tank

 

[RichConley]

I agree that in most cases the raw materials are already in the tank, but if you keep taking out more than you put in, you end up with nothing. At some point, you end up just taking out what is going in. This is probably why people see less skimmate as tanks stablize.

vodka is generally added as a carbon source for bacteria, which then metabolize the sugars and in the process, metabolize some phosphate. They are then skimmed out.

Anyone know of any studies (I've seen them for plants) on how much mass in carbon corals fixate on a daily basis from CO2?

 

[poknsnok]

maybe we are adding more than we thing we are.. IE quality of nutrients/foods we are adding are capable of sustaining quite a bit of the types of waste we are skimming out?

 

[toothman]

I certainly am enjoying this discussin. I really do not think I am skimming way more than 6 cubes of food plus some algae from the glass. I have a 7 foot tank and viewing the long way it looks crystal clear, I do also run about 50 mg of ozone continuously.
ED