Some Questions

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Hi All

Been reading some interesting stuff

1) Water Changes by skimming wet? how many of you do this? & what advantages would there be?

2) Salt loss through skimming?

3) Feeding fish at Day Break? or just before the light come on? good idea or not?

Would like just to hear your idea's & thoughts

Mark
 
Hi Vatso,

1) No matter how wet you skim, it will never compair to doing a water change. What a water change does is replace (all the trace elements that we cant really test for) and remove some bad stuff. Skimming is just one (of a few) ways to remove the stuff that pollutes our systems and threatens the general health of our tanks!

2) Salt is one element that is skimmed out. Also salt creap will also drop the salinity over time. I like to check every 2 weeks that the salinity is right. More salt (and other elements) would be skimmed out quicky if skimming wet!

3) Depends on the fish you have! My tangs like to graze the whole day long on algae in the tank...seem to be constantly eating! I think the trick is to make sure that all the food is consumed...generally fish (I would imagine) are a little more humgry at breakfast time...but I would put the lights on!

Thats my 2cents!!

Cheers!
 
Thanks Inflames

I remember my mom always said breakfast was the most important meal of the day :)

as for 1) some people say they skim 10% of there water in 12 Hours? the questions that other asked is how they re fill their tanks over that time? I am interested in how this process would be "better" then the suck out 10% & replace like I currently do. they were saying things like the bubbles from the skimmer get more protein out this way?

Any case that what makes this hobby so cool so many different ideas!
 
as for 1) some people say they skim 10% of there water in 12 Hours? the questions that other asked is how they re fill their tanks over that time? I am interested in how this process would be "better" then the suck out 10% & replace like I currently do. they were saying things like the bubbles from the skimmer get more protein out this way?
quote]

I think this is playing with fire to be honest ....

yes skimming removes some of the salt with the proteins etc but to be able to control 10% water over 12 hours would be hard..... now look at the impact of this skimming

your water level would drop significantly so your overflow would raise above water and your DT would no longer recieve filtered water, hell worst case your return pump could burn out.....

So to counteract this you set up an auto top up pump which has salt water in it..... as the skimmer skims wet you add new salt water ..... seems good, until you factor in the fact that you also lost several litres of fresh water due to evaportion ..... now you have gone and put too much salty water in ......


Nah IMO too many things could go wrong, if you choose to do a WC then do it properly and not through the skimmer
 
100% agreed with Neil, the margin for error and to many things need to happen in order for this to work. Look at auto top up units...the good ones have a 2nd "cut off switch" just incase the 1st one fails!

I think we have all had something not work as it should in out tanks at one stage or another!

So rather just do a 10% water change.

Some great advancements have been made with the empellers in skimmer pumps to enable more and finer bubbles. Try get a skimmer pump with needle wheel or pin wheel technology. These make for much better skimmate!
 
Vatso, I gotta agree with Greg and Neil. Although it may be a pain, water changes are a better solution than wet skimming 20% of your water in a day. In a 1000l setup we're taking 200l of saltwater. Firstly thats a hell of a waste of money and secondly, why have the skimmer in the first place. Lastly you'll probably remove more beneficial bacteria from your tank than normal and you'll have it in a constant cycling process.

IMO, I'd skim 0.25% per day (depending on quantity of feeding) and do a 10% water change a week.
 
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