Originally Posted by
Ace25
Now add this to what they are saying.
30-40% of bacteria is skimmable, meaning it has the correct hydrophilic properties required to be removed via bubble fraction. Here is the big white elephant in the room, there are both good and bad types of bacteria, a good reef tank always wants to have the majority of the bacteria to be the good type. If you can sustain a greater ratio of good to bad bacteria, the natural population cycles of the bacteria will keep each other in check, the majority will always reproduce more to sustain a majority balance. How do we know that the 30-40% of the bacteria being skimmed is not the good type and you are then skewing the ratio in favor of the bad type to multiply in the tank and wreak havoc.
The answer is, we don't know. So if we don't actually know if we are helping or harming our tank by removing stuff via skimming, then why do it? Why not let the tank find its own natural balance instead, it will make the entire reef tank keeping experience much more peaceful and stable overall. Sure, there are certain scenarios where a skimmer can help, like an accidental extreme overfeeding, but if that happened it would actually be cheaper to do a 100% water change to fix that issue than it is to buy a skimmer for those super rare occasions.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote