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Thread: ATS for 600 liter reef

  1. #21

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    Re: ATS for 600 liter reef

    Well, I'm not going to start a "skimmer v.s scrubber" debate, but.. I beg to differ (just a little bit).

    I do understand that bubbles will attach to all organic particles in all skimmers (I mean that's what they do). My skimmers (KZ revolution and Elos NS 500) as well as most will pass some organic particles through though. Also, depending on how the sump is designed not all particles will pass through the skimmer when passing through the sump. Sooner or later "all" particles will end up in the cup, but not right away, so there is a good chance they will be eaten before that. I want my Phyto and Zooplankton (I culture a multitude of species) to stay alive as long as possible after I dose them. By using a skimmer that is "gentle" (I.E not using a mesh or needle wheel to produce bubbles) and not killing the plankton right away I can achieve this.

    For me the skimmer is a backup plan and nothing else since I started with the ATS. But both my systems work just fine with a skimmer and ATS working in parallel so I will keep it that way until I have a LOT more experience with using an ATS.

  2. #22
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    Re: ATS for 600 liter reef

    Yes they both "work" fine together, for now. The difference is when you need lots of food in the water, like a real reef has. That will be when you want to keep mandarins, anthias, flower pots, etc. (all very difficult to keep), and even totally non-photosynthetic corals (impossible to keep) without any target feeding at all. It will also be when you want your current coral growth to be double, triple, or quadruple what it currently is, using the same amount of light that you have now. Growth rates of acro's in the wild are a foot per year in length. This requires a lot of food in the water.

  3. #23

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    Re: ATS for 600 liter reef

    I understand, and we'll see what happens in the future. Currently I have both Mandarins (has been with me for a year) and a group of Pseudanthias Squamipinnis (six months) and they all seem to thrive. Could be because I'm culturing two species of Copepods as well as Nannochloropsis and feed the tanks with all the time. I'm not at all into LPS - so the Gonipora is not something I will try. I have ok growth rate with my Acros, it could be better a bit better I think, but it's ok.

  4. #24
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    Re: ATS for 600 liter reef

    Quote Originally Posted by maglofster
    Sooner or later "all" particles will end up in the cup, but not right away, so there is a good chance they will be eaten before that.
    I would certainly argue that point.

    Source: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2010/1/aafeature
    On the molecular level, this surface association is typically driven by the molecule/particle having a hydrophobic (= water hating) patch that can be buried in the bubble surface/interior. This arrangement avoids the energetically penalizing juxtaposition of hydrophobic surfaces with (hydrophilic) water, and so overall the system energy is lowered (a favorable occurrence). Some of the molecules/particles in aquarium water will meet this hydrophobic region criterion, and some will not. The ones that do not have a sufficiently large hydrophobic patch will not interact with bubbles, and hence will not be removed by skimming. From, the results of the experiments described here, it appears that only 20 - 35 % of the measurable TOC meets this hydrophobicity criterion (= [TOCl] defined earlier) whereas the remaining 65 - 80 % does not (= [TOCr] defined earlier). In essence, bubbles are a rather poor media for removal of organic nutrients from aquarium water compared to, for example, GAC. However, they do have the distinct benefit of being cheap.

  5. #25
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    Re: ATS for 600 liter reef

    Yes I thought everyone knew that skimmers only remove 30 percent of DOC. Bacteria remove the rest, although corals do eat DOC directly.

    But skimmers do remove tons of particles, and it's the particles that do lots of the sps feeding.

  6. #26

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    Re: ATS for 600 liter reef

    I am fully aware that skimmers do not remove all particles - hence the quotation marks around the word all.. But I did not realize that it was as low as 30%. But SM what do you mean by your earlier post " You might be surprised to hear that no skimmer lets plankton get through, unfortunately. Bubbles attach to any organic particle, live or dead." I think this is a bit contradicting to later posts in this thread? Or maybe it just needs clarifying of some terms?

  7. #27
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    Re: ATS for 600 liter reef

    Particles are not DOC. DOC is invisibly small. Particles, for the most part, are visible.

    All skimmers use bubbles, and bubbles attach to organic particles, whether the particles are alive or dead. Thus no skimmer is plankton safe, since all plankton are organic particles.

  8. #28

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    Re: ATS for 600 liter reef

    What size of particles are we talking here?

    Plankton like 1-2 ĩm in size will end up in the skimmer cup. But DOC will not (other than the 30% ofc). Is that what you are saying?

    So I'm right in my earlier post "Sooner or later "all" particles will end up in the cup, but not right away, so there is a good chance they will be eaten before that." BUT you argue the point that it would work even better if I would remove the skimmer because the particles would stay in the tank longer?

    Ace25's post is also right but I was not discussing DOC, but particles made up of Phytoplankton. A bit confusing.

  9. #29
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    Re: ATS for 600 liter reef

    Correct.

    Since the skimmer does not remove and Inorganic Nitrate or Inorganic Phosphate at all, and instead removes the food that you are paying to put in, why skim at all?

  10. #30
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    Re: ATS for 600 liter reef

    Well, the article did say "On the molecular level, this surface association is typically driven by the molecule/particle having a hydrophobic (= water hating) patch that can be buried in the bubble surface/interior.". From my reading of that article, I would say the same applies for both DOCs and Particles. They have to have the magic "stick to the bubble" properties in order to be removed, and only a fraction of the stuff in the water has those properties, which is why skimmers are so inefficient in what they do. They are a 1 trick pony and the trick only applies to 25-30% of the stuff in the water on average.

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