Protien skimmer gunk

[dylanwright826]

Can someone post about picture of what's inside the collection cup of their protein skimmer? Mines pulling some brown stuff but I feel like I'm pulling more water than necessary...please and thank you

 

[lsu_fishfan]

It's all personal preference,
If you want it a little more dry, open the valve on your skimmer a little.

I can post pics later today

 

[dylanwright826]

Air bubble valve? Or water flow valve? I just don't want it to fill completely up every day lol

 

[lsu_fishfan]

Water

 

[crew]

Ya, it's basically preference like Luke said. If you want more gunk and less water, just fiddle with your knobs until you get the skimmate results you are looking for. Keep in mind that most skimmers take about 10 minutes to settle after an adjustment is made, so play with it and then come back later and check to see the results.

I feel like wet skimming is probably going to pull more gunk out (although it's just a gut feeling) but at the same time you will go through more topoff water and have to balance your salinity more. Dry skimming is easier to maintain and you get that lovely fish butter. Great on toast.

 

[dylanwright826]

Yeah, that's what I'm aiming for. I top off manually and am already topping off about 3 to 4 gallons every 3 to 4 days...I would really like to cut that back some

 

[crew]

How big is your tank?

 

[dylanwright826]

Roughly 80 gallons/v

55 gallon display
20 gallon sump

So 75

 

[crew]

a gallon per day is definitely high. How often are you emptying the collection cup? What kind of lights do you have? Is the tank open or do you have a cover/canopy of some kind?

 

[genesis]

here is a link to a skimmer review I did on mine. It has picture as well. I skim more on the wet side

 

[enderg60]

top off =/= skimmer stuff. If you are actually pulling out a gallon of skimmate a day on a tank that size it would be almost clear unless your tank just crashed.

I think you are mistaking evaporation for skimmer waste.

 

[crew]

Not to mention skimmers pull out salt water and you are topping off (hopefully) with fresh water. You would see a pretty sharp decline in salinity if it's coming from your skimmer.

 

[lsu_fishfan]

dylanwright826;1066215 wrote: Yeah, that's what I'm aiming for. I top off manually and am already topping off about 3 to 4 gallons every 3 to 4 days...I would really like to cut that back some

Sounds like a lot of top off,
I am adding 5 gallons every 3-4 days,
But it's on a 250 with total water volume close to 300 gallons

 

[dylanwright826]

I only empty the collection cup about every other day. The display tank is covered with a canopy but the sump is open...deffinetly topping off because of evap but the skimmer just adds to it. I'm running 50/50 coral life lights.and the water is a dirty merky drown color, not clean

 

[dylanwright826]

dylanwright826;1066243 wrote: I only empty the collection cup about every other day. The display tank is covered with a canopy but the sump is open...deffinetly topping off because of evap but the skimmer just adds to it. I'm running 50/50 coral life lights.and the water is a dirty merky drown color, not clean

The water in the collection cup that is...

 

[crew]

the canopy probably helps a little bit, but I would bet you are still getting a decent amount of evaporation. If you want to cut back on water, I would look into putting glass covers on your tank. The collection cup is probably only about 1 gallon a week, if that.

 

[enderg60]

Why not poor your skimmate in something and see how much you are actually producing over a week compared to how much you are evaporating?

In all honesty you probably dont want to cut down on your evaporation. Come summer it will be a good thing.

I would say just tweek your skimmer so you have drier skimmate and get an auto top off system. I get about 1/4 lb of gunk and about 2-3 cups of water every week from my 540g system. But I evaporate around 1-3 gallons a day in winter and up to 5 a day in summer.

 

[catgirl29]

Just a tip. If you leave your tanks in the care of your husband (or wife) and they decide to top off way more than you've told them, your skimmer may pull a lot more water than usual, thus overflowing and resulting in a panicked phone call from said spouse.

It's ok in these instances to think, "I told you so" but not ok to say it out loud. After all, said spouse did take care of the tanks, for the most part, and everything was still alive when you arrived home.

 

[ricky5415]

Have u tried to skim it dry a little bit. Set it and leave it for a couple hrs first before tinkle much with it. I would turn off the return pump while u do tuning to make sure that the skimmer won't get overflowed incase the return pump fail. Tuning just a little bit in the middle and see how that goes first. Then drier or wetter is just depend on u. To me , running them drier is better so it won't mess with the salinity. Post some pics of the sump + skimmer setup

 

[dylanwright826]

I've gotten it perfect y'all....thank you so much...now on to the topic of glass tops...to you have a good glass person? I can cut glass...in straight through and through lines...i would have to cut squares out of the corners of the glass for the overflow box(my tank isn't drilled) and return plumbing