Skimmer sizing with scrubber

[paphater]

Are there any recommendations for sizing a skimmer in conjunction with a scrubber? I recently replaced my DIY ats with a Turbo L3. My current skimmer is an over sized cheapy that came with the tank, and with my DIY scrubber I got very little production out of it with my nitrates being .44 mg/l and my phosphate at .03 mg/l. And that was with a small amount of carbon dosing. I imagine with an ATS you'll get better production out of an undersized skimmer but I'm not sure just how undersized I should go.

[SantaMonica]

Welcome.

There is no connection of scrubbers to skimmers. If you want unnaturally clear water with no food particles, then you can use a skimmer, but you'll need to feed more to make up for the particles removed. Natural reefs have tremendous amounts of food particles in the water all the time, especially at night.

However if you just stop the carbon dosing, the scrubber will grow more.

[paphater]

I think eventually I'll stop the carbon dosing once the new scrubber matures. If you don't use a skimmer, is there a spike in nutrients right after the screen is harvested?

[SantaMonica]

A skimmer does not remove nutrients, so nutrients will do whatever they will do whether or not a skimmer is there.

But since a scrubber does remove nutrients, after you harvest there will be a rise.

To prevent a rise, just harvest half the screen, or better, have 2 scrubbers and only clean one at a time.