Seth The Wine Guy;768701 wrote: When I switched skimmers (I went from an SRO3000 to something else), I ran both skimmers on the tank for two weeks together just for fun. HOLY MOLY! My milli's went from looking like Howie Mandel to a full blown Tommy Chong shag head.
FWIW- I NEVER had polyp extension in my 200 total gallon system with the SRO. I typically don't run GFO and doing AT LEAST one but usually two 30g WC a week I couldn't get my PO4 below .10 feeding moderate to heavy.
With just the new skimmer on the tank now, I chum the water with food like I'm shark fishing and increased the fish bio-load by 25%. My PO4 stays around .05 without using GFO. I still do once a week 30g WC.
(Side note, I use a Hanna bench top photometer to measure my PO4 so I feel the numbers are accurate and if nothing else, consistent.)
My PH levels actually went up with the addition of the new skimmer. I assume better O2 levels/decreased CO2 levels contribute to this from the increase of liters per hour of air flow.
Since your MR-2 can be run external, why don't you just run both for a bit and see what you think? If you like the results, you might consider selling both the skimmers you have now and moving into a higher tier.
Upper tier skimmers also seem to hold their value much better. You rarely see them up for sale, and when you do, they go fast and they don't go cheap. The addition of my new skimmer has had the single largest impact on my tank and the quality of life in my tank over any other component I've bought. I wish I would have figured it out sooner.
