well I thought a skimmer would work?

[petenheather]

Hi, haven't posted in awhile because I thought everything was going ok, well much to my suprise things have not changed much.
We purchased a remora protein skimmer w/overhang box, we found out that we have NO room for a sump so this was the next best thing. I am still seeing nitrates in my water parameters? they seem to hover around 20ppm and the ammonium is between 0ppm and 0.5 ppm, all other parameters are fine, we are doing a 10% w/c every5-6 days and we are not over feeding. we have not had a loss of livestock since my last post, we did add a coral beauty 2 weeks ago...I need help agian, what could be causing the trates to remain sooooo high, is it possible the skimmer is not working right..any suggestions would be great:rollface:

 

[PatMayo]

I had a 46 gallon with a crushed coral substrate and managed to have zero nitrates. I am concerned that you have any trace of ammonia at all. A well maintained and cycled tank will almost never show any sign of ammonia.

You say you do not overfeed, how do you know? How much do you feed the tank and what is the total stocking amount?

How much skimmate do you get from your skimmer?

Maybe this link will help. Nitrate is a pain in the neck to get low at times. Parameters have to be just right.

By the way how much coralline do you have?

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/august2003/chem.htm

Regards,

Pat

 

[petenheather]

we feed once a day a mixture of mysis and flake, we also vary which frozen food we feed, alternating days with diff food, we also give ateeny pinch of flake, beleive me it is not much at all, we have 1 lawnmower blenny, 2 clowns 1 coral beauty, 5 turbo snails and 1 sexy shrimp and 1 cleaner shrimp, and 1 hermit crab

 

[petenheather]

also i forgot, we dont get much gunk from the skimmer, maybe it raised to high, we alter the height and sometimes we get more liquid with no foam and sometimes we get some foam but hardly any liquid.

 

[petenheather]

I must have brain freeze....we have a lot of coraline algae, rocks are purple, green,pink, all the colors of the rainbow! we have about 45lbs of lr, most figi and live substrate sand

 

[Witchdoctor_h]

I have a Remora Pro and I keep it on the lowest level. The skimmate is not very dark, but the way I see it, I'd rather it pull out all the gunk, and a little water than no water and less gunk. It's been my experience that the skimmate, while not very dark, is very thick. (Viscosity wise) Which tells me that it is pulling a lot of stuff out.
By the way, all of my parameters are at zero. And seem to stay that way.
Eric

 

[petenheather]

we have been toying around with the height and I will take your advice and lower mine to get more gunk and less water..thanks

 

[Witchdoctor_h]

It works for me.
It might be worth a try.
Good luck, and let us know how it does.
Eric

 

[pvtschultz]

I like to use the smell test for skimmate. If it smells bad, then it is working just fine. I personally keep the water level quite high in the neck of the skimmer to "wet skim" producing a lighter color foam. Skimmers can take a while to "break in" before they start pulling at their best. Does the Remora have an adjustable air intake? If not, the addition of a valve on the air intake can often times help dial in the skimmer to produce the finest bubbles possible.

The ammonia could be from the combination of adding the angel and the removal of the bio media from your filter. I have lost track of time over the last couple of weeks (been hell finishing my degree while working) so I am not sure the time scale since the last time that we talked, but that is the best that I can guess. I always question feeding, but it is irresponsible for anyone to say that you may be overfeeding still. Generally, foods higher in greens have less calories than the meaty foods so use your best judgement when feeding. Since you have a lot of coralline and not a lot of green alga, I am assuming that you have managed to keep your phosphates quite low (this is the main food source for algea) and the nitrates are not affecting the coralline. I would still try to keep them below 10 ppm though.

I would continue your 10% weekly changes and feeding and just keep a log of the nitrate and ammonium levels. If the NH doesn't go down in the next week, you are overfeeding or something is decaying. If during the next month, the nitrates contine to raise, then you may want to feed less daily or switch to the same amount every other day. You may also want to consider growing halmida (a calcarous macro algea) in the tank to fix some more of the nitrates. Keep in touch. Email me at carlschultz69@hotmail.com if you ever need a quick fix.

 

[petenheather]

thanks soooo much pvt carl schultz, by the way it does stink! and it does have an air intake, we see almost no bubbles, basically bubbleless..haha also I have NO unwanted algae...none of that hairy crap or green slime/red slime..thank god! my rocks look sooooo nice. I will post a pic soon, as soon as i can get my photobucket to work..Heather

 

[Witchdoctor_h]

Heather,

I don't think it does have an air intake. It's a Spray Injection skimmer. It shoots a stream of water into the reservior of the skimmer. That's what makes the bubbles. But Pvt. Schultz is right. It will take a little time for it to break in.

Eric

 

[petenheather]

thanks eric...I seem to be doing the waiting thing again!

 

[Witchdoctor_h]

That's the hardest part of this hobby, Waiting!
It's really hard for people like me. I'm not very patient.
Eric

 

[petenheather]

**waiting** seems to be my middle name