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A really interesting and fantastic thread on skimming and skimmate


MyCatsDrool

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supreme_spork
People use skimmer because they remove nasty poo from the water. Less nasty poo is gooood. If you want the corals to eat, feed them and then let the nasty-poo-removing machine remove the excess. If you are worried about the skimmer removing good stuff too, well, do regular water changes, as you should be doing anyway.

 

Honestly, skimming is just one way of simplifying the reefkeeper's job. It does make it easier to keep clean and clear water, though there are of course other ways to accomplish this. I use alot of carbon (to control allelopathy), I skim, I do large and frequent water changes, I have a planted refugium, and I use felt filter bags. Could I eliminate some of the filtration methods I employ? Sure. Will my tank crash? Probably not. Is skimming doing more harm than good? THAT is the key question, and I think the answer, in 99% of cases, is an emphatic no.

 

Bourneman makes a simple thing waaaaay too complicated, as usual. Next I expect he'll spend weeks examining filter floss to see if it removed any beneficial life. Pure sillyness. This hobby is so unbelievably prone to fads because so many people think that there must be a "right" and a "wrong" way to keep a reef tank. There just isn't. There are thousands of techniques, ideas, and tricks which, when used wisely, result in a happy tank. Skimming is just one of those tricks.

 

- Josh

 

+1, I'm with you SPS.

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shaggydoo541

LOL.... Propagator you can't be older than 15. These debates are always so pointless. Its all opinion and those that think they have all the 'facts' are the most misguided of all.

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I agree with prop in as much as Eric B. hasn't contributed much to the hard science behind reefing. He has written some very thought-provoking articles, but really, in the end, he is just a moderately advanced hobbyist. His experiment lacks controlled variables; it is more a collection of observations and speculation than an actual experient. This is not to say that nothing can be learned from it, but Mr. B. didn't exactly break any new ground there.

 

Shaggy, clearly (by looking at your tank thread) your tank is doing pretty well. Your corals look to be happy. In the end, thats all that really matters. To that extent, personal preference and opinion reigns king in this hobby. When something is working, why mess with it, right?

 

However, I would bet my left nut that if you added a skimmer, nothing would suffer, and the health and vibrancy of your corals would likely improve. (Attempting to collect on this bet, should I be wrong, will be met with violence, lol) You stated that you would consider using a skimmer as soon as someone could tell you definitively exactly what it is pulling out of your water. There is another question you might ask yourself: What, exactly, is my filter floss / activated carbon / chaeto / etc removing from the water? The answers to that question are just as unsettled as the question regarding skimmate.

 

Keep in mind that the surface area to volume ratio is MUCH higher in the ocean than it could ever be in a reef tank, unless you were to keep a 48" x 24" x .025" aquarium. More like a wet sheet of glass, really. There is alot going on at the air/water interface, including degassing, fractionation (skimming) resulting in a surface slick which is then digested by heterotrophic bacteria, phytoplankton growth, wave action, wind, powerful UV light, etc etc. You just can't even come close to simulating that in a closed system. You reef tank, no matter how hard you try, is vastly different from the ocean. There is absolutely nothing "natural" about it. Skimming is just one of our crude methods for approximating the environment of the reef. Of course, nobody can say for sure what it is removing from the water in any particular system without mass spectrometry and lots of other expensive technologies.

 

People skim in SPS tanks because the cumulative experience of thousands of aquarists tends to indicate that such tanks are more stable, less prone to crashes, and can be fed more safely. It provides a little more margin for error which is all too often paper-thin in reef aquaria. At the very least, it aerates the hell out of the water and removes particulates from the system. That is a good thing.

 

I personally guarantee you, shaggy, your tank would not suffer if you added a skimmer. Can I prove it? No. Has Bourneman established, scientifically, that there is any harm done by skimming? Absolutely not.

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shaggydoo541

SPS20 - That is an intelligent response that I will gladly address. I can see your point where he did little to establish his goals (Bourneman) scientifically but as you state most of what he does is question the status quo. And for this I have to give him credit because without challenging our current setups we would still be stuck in the sw world of 20 yrs ago which allowed us to keep 1/100th of the corals and fish that are commonplace today. Advances come through questioning.

 

You raise a very good point about what exaclty does carbon remove from the water? Who knows exactly? It is basically just as much of a mystery as a skimmer. But with a skimmer you are actively and constantly removing things from the water column and in my mind these things can be microscopic organisms/pieces of food. Carbon cannot really remove that much since it is physically removed from the tank fairly irregularly compared to a skimmer and any foodstuffs that happens to float into carbon could possibly make its way back into the water column.

 

Again this is all my opinion but it logically makes sense to me that filter feeders need small food. Small food can get stuck to a skimmer bubble if it has the necessary hydrophobic/hydrophilic components. That is my main reasoning behind no skimmer. Also the fact that my tank looks great ;) If there is anyone who still does not believe a successful tank can be run without a skimmer take a look at my thread. You can't argue with pics and the results I am seeing.

 

As for the years of aquarist experience, I tend to lean towards my own years of experience versus the cumulative ideas of others. As you said why mess with what works. Also it definitely is a good thing to aerate the water as most tanks I see tend to be under oxygenated. A skimmer is definitely great for this.

 

Now with your guarentee that my tank would benefit from no skimmer, before I would take that guarantee I would have to have a cashiers check in my hand for enough $$$ to replace all my livestock and tank. I honestly think adding one right now would be a disaster becuase any change/shock to a system can prove fatal. But if you want to pony up the funds I'll hook one up ;)

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Now with your guarentee that my tank would benefit from no skimmer, before I would take that guarantee I would have to have a cashiers check in my hand for enough $$$ to replace all my livestock and tank. I honestly think adding one right now would be a disaster becuase any change/shock to a system can prove fatal. But if you want to pony up the funds I'll hook one up ;)

 

:o

 

SHaggy I think you miss worded the 1st sentence...but if you honestly think a PS would crash

a stable 120 gal tank...see the little smilee face...

 

Izzue

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shaggydoo541

I honestly think a skimmer would crash my tank. Any change to a tank could cause issues and I think filtering out a lot of what has been in the tank for a while suddenly would cause some major issues. Maybe if I eased the skimmer in slowly... running it a short while for the first few days then gradually increasing the time it runs. That may work. But again why add one in the first place?

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But again why add one in the first place?

 

Well Im diffently one of those peeps if it works stick with it...so I understand

what you are saying...

Im not gonna analysis any of my skimmate...but I will tell you one thing

HAVE you ever inhaled...skimmate smell that is :P

 

Stink bomb...

So if that junk came out of the water...good...cause if the house ever smelled

like that skimmate...dog house I go..LOL

 

Izzue

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I have been reef keeping for more than 15 years. I think I know a thing or three about it.

What I "spouted off" is HARDLY opinion.

 

Okay so you have 15 years of time to come up with your opinions on why things work and what works for you. Thats fine and you probably have a wealth of good knowledge but its still doesn't make them scientific fact.

 

 

Thats how nature helps rid the waters of organic nasties when they build up to exceed the reefs and other organisms capability of ridding it from the water them selves.

 

Lets think about some thing here for a second.....

The reefs are in the ocean yes?

ALL of our oceans reefs are Relatively close to a shore line right?

See where I am going with this?

(probably not but try and think about it)

 

First off most reef are not close to the shorlines, many are miles off shore, think of 90% of the reefs in australia and around the world. The vast majority of the great barrier reef is miles off shore. Think of most of the fiji island they are coral reefs that formed over millions of years out in the middle of the bumm #### no where. By you saying ALL of our reefs are close to shore you truely prove you have no idea what you are talking about.

 

Also by your logic: Reefs are in the ocean, right? Penguins live in the ocean, right? So penguins live on reefs, right? NOOOOOOO!!!

 

 

If you think Eric Borenman performed an experiment in a lab I have some ocean front property in Arizona for sale you might like to buy as well.

 

Really, how much are you asking?

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First off most reef are not close to the shorlines, many are miles off shore, think of 90% of the reefs in australia and around the world. The vast majority of the great barrier reef is miles off shore. Think of most of the fiji island they are coral reefs that formed over millions of years out in the middle of the bumm #### no where. By you saying ALL of our reefs are close to shore you truely prove you have no idea what you are talking about.

 

Lol. Check a map, son. Are you saying Fiji doesn't have a shoreline lol?

 

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/153208m...reef_map_lg.jpg

 

I'd also suggest reading up on different types of reef (i.e. atoll, fringing, barrier) and how they form.

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Too clarify I am not saying all of fiji, but some of the islands formed. Also I never said all reefs form strickly offshore, but look at the GBR most of it is at least 10 miles of shore with some going out over 160 miles out. Hardly relatively close to shore.

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Not all the reefs are extremely close to shore, but absolutely every single one of them, without exception, is very close to the air/water interface, churned by wave action and blown by winds. Skimming, of a sort, absolutely happens on reefs in nature.

 

The usefulness of protein skimming isn't an issue of scientific fact, but rather one of technical utility. Skimming reduces nutrient load, promotes gas exchange, and removes small particulates (detritus) from the water. There is no exact analogue of this on the reef, of course. Then again, there aren't little felt filter bags and activated carbon scattered all over the place either.

 

Just about all the filtration technology used in reef tanks was originally developed for wastewater treatment, and was later applied to aquaculture. The lessons learned in aquaculture were then, in turn, applied to home hobbyist's systems. You would be very hard-pressed to find a single successful closed-circuit saltwater aquaculture operation that does not make heavy use of protein skimming. Thats just the way it is done, because it has been found through trial and error to be the best way.

 

I'll stick with the lessons learned in decades of aquaculture, they haven't led me astray yet.

 

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say that a properly operated and implemented protein skimmer cannot crash an otherwise healthy and properly maintained system.

 

Find an occasion where a skimmer allegedly resulted in the crash of a system, and I will show you either a poorly designed / improperly installed skimmer, or a system that was, in some unrelated way, deeply flawed.

 

- Josh

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shaggydoo541

Izzue - I understand that the skimmate stinks but most is smelt after sitting in the collection cup for a day or two. Take any living critter our of our tank and it will definitely stink in a very short time. Stink does not necessarily mean bad. And the stink itself can very possible be caused by the skimmer... taking the particles/matter out of the water column and allowing it to sit and die in an unnatural habitat.

 

Greenstar - Skimmers should not be removing elements because of the way they function. The bubbles trap compounds with hydrophillic and hydrophobic portions. Pretty much all 'elements' we worry about in our tanks are too small and don't have the necessary components to be trapped by the bubbles. The only way you would lose any elements would be by taking out extremely wet skimmate as you would be removing elements by taking out the water itself.

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Too clarify I am not saying all of fiji, but some of the islands formed. Also I never said all reefs form strickly offshore, but look at the GBR most of it is at least 10 miles of shore with some going out over 160 miles out. Hardly relatively close to shore.

 

With the vast expanse of the ocean, do you really not consider 160 or even 200 miles 'relatively close'? Please don't forget the reef itself is comprised of hundreds of islands - so certainly maybe 160 miles from the continent of Australia's shore, sure, but not from actual "shore".

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shaggydoo541
I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say that a properly operated and implemented protein skimmer cannot crash an otherwise healthy and properly maintained system.

 

Find an occasion where a skimmer allegedly resulted in the crash of a system, and I will show you either a poorly designed / improperly installed skimmer, or a system that was, in some unrelated way, deeply flawed.

 

- Josh

 

A skimmer could definitely cause a crash if the tank is not properly acclimated to it. If I was to throw a skimmer on my tank and run it 24/7 my inhabitants would become stressed. I am sure of that. Having run my current tank for almost a year with no skimmer if I was to suddenly deprive the tank of some substance that they had become accustomed to living with my livestock is going to react, and most likely negatively. Our tanks are all about balance and any time you disrupt this balance quickly things will die.

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Its a 160 miles out from any piece of terra firma that is permantly exposed. There are a number or reef heads that are exposed at low tides. Ask anyone that sail in the ocean if a 160 miles out to sea is off shore and the answer everytime is going to be yes.

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The presence or absence of nearby shoreline is a red herring. What is more pertinent is the proximity of the air / water interface, which is constantly churned by waves, blown by winds, irradiated by powerful UV radiation, infested with pelagic plankton, etc, NONE of which is happening in your reef tank, unless you MAKE it happen by artificial means.

 

Think about that for a second.

 

Our tanks, as much as you would like to disagree, are the furthest possible thing from natural. The ultimate goal is to approximate the nutrient-poor yet food-rich waters bathing the world's reefs. Heavy skimming combined with feeding does a really good job of that.

 

When I first got into the hobby, few people used protein skimmers, and the ones those few used were often innefective. Wet-dry filters with rotating spraybars over DLS media were all the rage, and frankly, most reef systems were pretty lame back then. When affordable protein skimmers began hitting the market, it bacame much much easier for home hobbyists to maintain these animals, and the berlin method was born. The protein skimmer is and remains a catalyst behind the hobby we all enjoy.

 

When the first affordable skimmers came out, there was alot of hubub about how this might hurt people's reef systems. As people began to use them, and discarded their wet-dry media, they discovered that preventing wastes from decomposing in the first place via skimming is vastly superior to facilitating rapid nitrification.

 

People kept reefs before skimmers, but reefing in general has taken a HUGE step forward with the advent of effective and affordable skimmers.

 

Its not like we are saying anything revolutionary here people. This is basic basic stuff. Skimmers just don't and can't crash systems, unless you are doing something very wrong.

 

- Josh

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Our tanks, as much as you would like to disagree, are the furthest possible thing from natural. The ultimate goal is to approximate the nutrient-poor yet food-rich waters bathing the world's reefs. Heavy skimming combined with feeding does a really good job of that.

I absolutely totally agree with this, We would need to put an ounce and half of whole food into a 100g reef every day to be near availible food in the reef for corals. Shimek said it I can source it if you really want me too.

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shaggydoo541

A skimmer won't crash a normal system set up with one initially but adding anything new to an existing system needs to be done with caution.

 

I definitely see what you are saying with the air being close to the reef and getting churned into the reef itself but that is more of an argument for good aeration than anything else. The churning is not causing matter to be lifted out of the reef. The currents may be doing that but only gasses can escape through the air. There is no doubt that currents sweep through quickly and both import and export items. But to think a skimmer does this export is all opinion and a skimmer is honestly not replicating any form of nature. I agree that in reality nothing in our tank replicates nature... we are creating very very artificial environments and I think it is a freak accident to begin with that our livestock survives for a day :)

 

When I first got into the hobby skimmers were all the rage. The first question asked when you said you were starting a tank is what skimmer you were going with. People honestly considered it more important than lighting and water movement (especially water movement). All I'm saying is that the norm and the 'tried and true' method should not always be accepted. I was told to expect a crash within weeks after starting a skimmerless tank, but I'm still waiting for it. I keep colorful SPS, healthy fish, and a wide mix of all other corals all with no skimmer. There are many other variables in a tank but a skimmer should NOT be considered a necessary one.

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