Such a thing as too much skimming?
- Thread starter Bill Shea
- Start date
Henry Bowman
Reefing since '87
Bill,
NO...you cant overskim but you can oversize the skimmer for your tank to the point that it is not efficient. Larger skimmers require a certain bioload to work, the neck and water flow through the skimmer would make it very inefficient for a smaller tank.
What kind of skimmer are you looking at?
I think the idea here is to get the most efficient skimmer you can afford.
Have you looked at the I-Tech Skimmers? the 200 would probably be the perfect size for your tank. They are a great skimmer for the dollar. Also SWC skimmers are good skimmers.
I have an H&S rated for a 200 gl tank on a system with probably 110 gallons of water. I just changed it for an I Tech 100 and it is outperforming the H&S. I know a guy with an SWC and it keeps his tank happy, pulls tons of junk out of the tank daily.
FWIW
NO...you cant overskim but you can oversize the skimmer for your tank to the point that it is not efficient. Larger skimmers require a certain bioload to work, the neck and water flow through the skimmer would make it very inefficient for a smaller tank.
What kind of skimmer are you looking at?
I think the idea here is to get the most efficient skimmer you can afford.
Have you looked at the I-Tech Skimmers? the 200 would probably be the perfect size for your tank. They are a great skimmer for the dollar. Also SWC skimmers are good skimmers.
I have an H&S rated for a 200 gl tank on a system with probably 110 gallons of water. I just changed it for an I Tech 100 and it is outperforming the H&S. I know a guy with an SWC and it keeps his tank happy, pulls tons of junk out of the tank daily.
FWIW
Reefer08
New member
After purchasing a huge skimmer for my tank I now believe yes their is such a thing as too much skimming. I have a Warner Marine AS200 on around 80g of water volume. Its a great skimmer but it needs to be run wet or else it wont pull anything out. It goes through its moments where it will pull a ton out then stop etc. I guess one way to counteract overskimming is to get more fish and have a larger bioload, that way the skimmer will always have gunk to pull out. I only have 3 fish in my tank, I plan on adding 5 more after that im sure my skimmer will perform much better.
Henry Bowman
Reefing since '87
Reefer 08. What you are experiencing is exactly what I was trying to explain. Oversized skimmers will not efficiently skim tanks that are vastly smaller than they are rated for. The sporadic performance is exactly the problem with "overskimming" if you gents want to call it that.
Skimmers only remove between 50-70% of the total dissolved organice. This is why we still need to do water changes (well most of us, but that's another thread). Undersized skimmers will work too hard and never get all they can and too much oversized and the skimmer has nothing to "bite" or "get traction" on as they are not designed to remove organics from smaller water quantities. There's just rarely ever enough of a "load" on the oversized skimmer to make it work right.
Hope that makes sense.
Skimmers only remove between 50-70% of the total dissolved organice. This is why we still need to do water changes (well most of us, but that's another thread). Undersized skimmers will work too hard and never get all they can and too much oversized and the skimmer has nothing to "bite" or "get traction" on as they are not designed to remove organics from smaller water quantities. There's just rarely ever enough of a "load" on the oversized skimmer to make it work right.
Hope that makes sense.
Compguy
New member
I do believe that a skimmer can be to big, a while back I let my tank go for like 2 or 3 months, I left the auto top off do its thing and it was still adding calcium and alkalinity but during that time, like a month or so in I had a boom in growth, and the skimmer was off, at least thats the only thing I could think of that caused it, that maybe I am pulling out way to much stuff that is good for my corals, I have no idea if thats right or makes any sense, or if somebody may know what else caused it please let me know, cause after I got everything back to normal I am experimenting with running my skimmer every other day and pushing water changes back to every 3 or more weeks, I am just testing to keep an eye on things.
I was looking at the octopus 200 recirculating. It is rated up to 300 gallons. I have a 40 gallon refugium and a pretty big bio load. I am also thinking about upgrading my tank to a 220 so i was hoping that if i upgrade it would be sufficient for the bigger tank as well. I have a sealife systems now and it only skims a couple cupfuls a month.
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