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Thread: Skimmer functionality when running a scrubber

  1. #31
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    I have found that in the week since my pump blew, my skimmer has produced consistently dark skimmate
    Because of all the extra food particles in the water.

  2. #32
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    It would be helpful to try and assess if there is a correlation between certain screen growth stages and these periodic dark skimmate, light skimmate, unpredictable stages. Ie. do they occur after cleaning, thin screen growth, thick growth etc. Theres probably an algae growth/death/exudate/oxidation relating factor. (assuming the skimmer is operating reliably in all cases).

  3. #33

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    Stopped skimmer after scrubber, after about 3 months, everything still cool, out of curiosity added skimmer back.
    Very dark skimmate, smells very bad, but it fades to very light and no smell within a week.
    Before was medium skimmate, consistant, both level and amount of skimmate.
    Now run it for a week every month and results as above....dark in the beginning and light towards the end.
    But level flucturates, mainly during scrubber light-on light off period. Don't know why.....

  4. #34

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    Cleaned my new scrubber for the third time today. I have a very strong base coat of brown on the ruffed-up portion of my screen, a few spots of green showing up here and there, and my nitrates have just begun to fall (went from 0 to about 15 after my old scrubber died during a pump failure, back down to 10 now). My skimmer never worked right with my original scrubber. It skimmed dark and consistent after the screen died, but has been skimming lighter and more watery as the new screen is breaking in. I really hope it doesn't go back to it's old habit of skimming nothing then all of the sudden overflowing.

  5. #35

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    Quote Originally Posted by holidayz View Post
    Stopped skimmer after scrubber, after about 3 months, everything still cool, out of curiosity added skimmer back.
    Very dark skimmate, smells very bad, but it fades to very light and no smell within a week.
    Before was medium skimmate, consistant, both level and amount of skimmate.
    Now run it for a week every month and results as above....dark in the beginning and light towards the end.
    But level flucturates, mainly during scrubber light-on light off period. Don't know why.....
    I would guess that whatever you are skimming out was alive in your tank then died in your skimmer. It could be microalgae or something along those lines.

    I understand the idea of heavy aeration pre scrubber, and could even see how a skimmer + scrubber could provide some stability in tanks that have a large swing over the course of a scrubber cleaning cycle... But if tank stability and scrubber growth is not an issue, then is there a point to running both together?

    Or is that the question that is being looked at now?

  6. #36
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    It was more along the lines of looking for a pattern. A few of my customers mentioned their skimmers would act differently before & after adding a scrubber. I thought that there might be a connection between running a scrubber and more efficient skimming, or rather the scrubber and skimmer overlapping function. So when a scrubber was added to the system, the skimmer might be skimming less or differently, producing less or lighter skimmate. I thought that might mean that the skimmer would have a slightly different or tighter "focus" or something, rather than being a broad-system filter.

    Not sure if that explains is well. Hard to describe.

    But the idea here is that most people seem to center around a primary piece of equipment as the workhorse of their filtration system. Everyone has seen the mega skimmers. Bill Waan, Volcano, etc. They costs thousands of dollars and are ridiculously huge, but seemingly do the job very well. This filtration component has been around long enough and there are enough argument for it's effectiveness, even at 15-20% efficiency, that it has a place in the reef hobby industry, and it's not going away, nor do I feel it should.

    However, that doesn't mean it has to be what everyone thinks of to get first, or is told to get first. I think there are benefits beyond simple nutrient removal that a scrubber provides that a skimmer cannot. If a scrubber can tighten the efficiency focus of a skimmer, this means one could get the same effectiveness out of a smaller skimmer than what is currently "recommended" for a given tank size.

    Couple that with the change over from volume-based to feeding-based scrubber sizing, why should the rating of a skimmer not be related to feeding volume as well, or at least the skimmer's fractional role in the overall filtration system? That is, if you feed 3 cubes/day, why not have a 2 cube/day scrubber and a 1 cube/day skimmer?

    Rant over.

  7. #37

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    Missing from this I think is skimmer placement or if it matters. Before or after scrubber?
    Is it not fact that saltwater airates(?) more than fresh? So placement wouldn't matter? Or is super airation(?) a key factor?
    I've been looking at skimmers lately and interestingly enough Floyd/Bud, at ones rated less than my tank thinking it would only be supplemental seeing my main filtration is my scrubber. Real thinking behind it was an oxygenating/ph reason than filtering thus a lower rated skimmer and footprint. We have no AC and it's warm here.

  8. #38
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    Hi Folks

    So what's the latest ? To skim or not to skim?

    If I'm reading this thread right it looks like running the skimmer with the ATS could be more beneficial but it's not clear why. Plus a few folks have skimmers that play up with the use of an ATS. One of my favorite reef tanks has an ATS, skimmer and biopellets (http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2013/1/aquarium).

    I've been running a horizontal ats on my system for a few months now with okay results and i'm very tempted to remove my skimmer and just run a vertical ATS. I could plumb it into the display return pipe in my sump (where my skimmer currently sits) and not worry about an extra pump to run or I could keep my skimmer as is (in the first sump compartment) and set up the new ats in my fuge section (but would need another pump).

    I was all set to remove my skimmer as in the first option until I read this thread?

    Any comments / updates welcome?

    Snoops

  9. #39
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    Give this a read, it's one of the better articles out there

    http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-09/rhf/index.php

    While this article has to do with phosphates, it also helps you understand the role that a skimmer can play in removal of organic phosphate. There is also mention of non-filtration benefits of skimmers

    2. Skimming is another big winner, in my opinion. Not only does it export organic forms of phosphate, reducing the potential for them to break down into inorganic phosphate, but it reduces other nutrients and increases gas exchange. Gas exchange is an issue that many aquarists don't ordinarily recognize, but it is the primary driver of reef aquarium pH problems.
    So this and other reasons are why I have shifted over to a more off-center opinion instead of hard-line against when it comes to skimmers. You just don't need a mega gigantor skimmer, IMO, at least not for most people. But, it's hard to say, for instance on a large heavy SPS tank, if a scrubber + moderate skimmer would do better, worse, or no different than the no-scrubber + mega-skimmer typical setup that you see. Simply because you don't have many people with 2 mega tanks that they are willing to experiment on with this concept.

    I guess I don't know why skimmers run differently when a scrubber is employed, but for the majority of people (unless you're someone like Ace) this seems to be the case. I talked to one of my users the other day (he's not online often) who again confirmed this on 2 of his tanks: before scrubber, emptying skimmer cup every other day, after scrubber, doesn't have to empty it for a week, no matter what the level setting.

    But anyways, as with many aspects of this hobby, we do what appears to work and try not to draw any conclusions until it seems to work consistently for a lot of people, and then we incorrectly call it a fact.

  10. #40
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    Organic phosphate is just food. If you want to remove food particles, just feed less and save yourself the money and the extra equipment.

    Also, photosynthesis from scrubbers tend to super-saturate the water with oxygen; thus a skimmer's bubble do not add any more oxygen.

    Lastly, if results are the same with scrubber-only and with scrubber+equipment1+equipment2+equipment3, why not just run with scrubber only? That lets you simplify the system down like I did on the reef pool, which has zero maintenance (not even glass cleaning), zero food purchases, zero water changes, and very low electrical use. Only top off, and dosing cal, alk, and rarely mag.

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