MacnReef Posted March 3, 2003 Share Posted March 3, 2003 Alright, I have had my tank set-up for a while now...altho recently I re-plumbed it for a 10g fuge. After talking with some people on here, RC and 3reef.com, I decided to put a protein skimmer that I had laying around in my sump and get rid of the fuge! BTW, at the time there were no algae blooms and the tank looked great! I took out the fuge and put a few inches of sand in between some baffles for nitrate removal. The skimmer was a PITA to get dialed in but once I did, it was removing a good amount of skimmate. After a few hours it stopped producing and would go on and off like that for the next few days. Everyday I noticed that the diatoms started blooming in my tank along with some green algae on the glass. Which when I had my fuge, I only had algae in the fuge. Which is better than in the display. I performed a water change (using DI like always) and then on Sunday when I woke up, the sand was covered with diatoms and the glass was becoming covered with green algae. I don't use any feed so i could not figure out what it was because I always read that protein skimmers would help to get rid of diatoms and excess nutrients. So Sunday, I ripped out the skimmer and (luckily) I kept the sand in saltwater outside to keep it alive. I put it back in the fuge and now we will see what happens! Just figured I would share this with everyone. Any comments are this subject or similar are appreciated. Thanx MacnReef Link to comment
tinyreef Posted March 3, 2003 Share Posted March 3, 2003 can't you use both? put the skimmer in the fuge. that's what my 'refugium' evolved into, a sump. X) but it seems to be working. it's constantly fighting the problems i'm having. part of which is that my ceiling is leaking onto my tank. the fact that your skimmer was able to immediately pull skimmate out, even tho you had been running with a fuge, shows its effectiveness imo (and the fuge's 'deficiencies'). there's 'stuff' it isn't pulling out as evidenced by the algae bloom (the skimmer's 'deficiencies') but if they're used in tandem you should be that much better off imo. Link to comment
MacnReef Posted March 3, 2003 Author Share Posted March 3, 2003 Tiny, Yeah, I kinda agree with you! Again Kinda. I had a 65g up and running for a while and I could never get control of the algae and I was running a protein skimmer 24/7 and I had a med fish load. My protein skimmer is huge, it is rated for like 225g, so there is really no room for a fuge with it in the 10g sump. Like I said, I still had a small space with my sand in it for a small fuge. So, I did still have both running. I don't know, think I will just stick with the fuge. Another thing, I had not done a water change in like two weeks before I put in the protein skimmer, so that is probably where the skimmate came from. But I just figured this would bring a good discussion on fuges and skimmers! Link to comment
tinyreef Posted March 3, 2003 Share Posted March 3, 2003 My protein skimmer is huge, it is rated for like 225g, so there is really no room for a fuge with it in the 10g sump. Like I said, I still had a small space with my sand in it for a small fuge. So, I did still have both running. sorry, i read it to be like an aquafuge you removed and replaced with a hob skimmer. you can still stick a little lee's cc skimmer in there. i don't think skimmers or macros can do all the work. together maybe but not individually imo. now this is for a 'no wc' system tho so it is not the (current) hobby norm : but i believe it can still be applicable to the mainstream. Link to comment
MacnReef Posted March 3, 2003 Author Share Posted March 3, 2003 Yeah, usually I do 10% weekly water changes. Just here recently I haven't made it to the LFS to get water for changes. Link to comment
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