Super aggresive skimming

[sushistix]

After having my corals smothered with cyano I decided to treat with Maracyn. I know everyone has mixed feelings on this and this post is not meant as a discussion of it. I changed my water source from tap to eliminate nitrates and phosphates but the cyano was still covering everything. The Maracyn definately kicked the cyanos butt, but it also cuased the tank to become very cloudy. This I beleive is a bacterial bloom. No problem except that my clowns are breathing a little heavy and hanging out at the bottom. I beleive I have read and maybe someone can verify that in a bacterial bloom a lot of CO2 is put off and may outgas the O2 levels in the tank. So I put an air pump with the airline to th input of a powerhead. This broke the air up into nice tiny little bubbles, so many that I can barely see into the tank. Hopefully this helps things.

The real reason for this post however is to comment on how the air bubbles are gathering at the top of the tank with lots of organic material. Basically like a skimmer but super sized. I have been scooping off the top periodically. I belaive this will also help to remove any medication left over combined with the fresh carbon running.

Has anyone else discussed how this could be a way to very aggressively skim your tank if needed or if there is any harm in introducing this much O2 into the tank?

 

[Racso]

Don't worry about adding too much oxygen to the tank. It wont happen that way. Not to mention that there are much better and easier ways to add oxygen to the tank. You said you have a powerhead, just move it to the top so it aggitates the water surface. No bubbles, and great way to add oxygen.

As for skimming. Basically, your whole tank is acting like a skimmer, but with no collection cup, thus you have to physically remove the stuff, so its not very effective.

 

[sushistix]

I was thinking of this being used in an emergency situation or when in dire need. Not as a permanant way of skimming. I would assume it is removing morematerial quicker since the whole tank is essentially being skimmed at once and not just the flow through the skimmer. And yes the drawback is removal by hand.

I added the airline to the powerhead just to add O2, this was just an observed side affect. Any other thoughts?

 

[jimwat]

I can not imagine that manual skimming would be very effective. If you are able to get crap out of your tank with this method, I imagine you are in dire need of a real skimmer. Even regular air stone skimmers do not work very well (not even sure where/if you can buy these anymore). But anything that you are getting out would be better than leaving it in. Anyway, I would not consider this "aggressive" skimming by any means.

The only thing that I have heard of being a problem with using an airstone would be with animals sensitive to microbubbles.