Wet skimming?! Smoke? And percentage of poop removed

[gmerek2]

Does wet skimming pull more junk from water than dry skimming? I like wet skimming because the skimmer stays cleaner longer and poop doesn't cake as much. Does smoking or a wood stove decrease efficiency? I heat with a wood stove starting December and think I read somewhere that it does decrease performance. I'm wondering if it's a noticeable difference. I'm also curious what percent of poop logs a skimmer can remove. Is it disappointingly low like only 10% of nasties are removed through skimming?

[Coral Hind]

I think wet skimming does pull more out since the bubbles can slide up and out without breaking on the accumulated gunk in the skimmer's neck. I also wet skim becuase of what you mentioned, the neck and cup are easier to clean out as there is no caked on mess. I think my skimmer removes way more than 10%. I guess if you measured the food you put into the tank for a week and then measured that week's worth of dried out skimmer scum you could get an idea of the amount of waste removed. I don't smoke or use a wood stove so I can't help with that question but I don't know why it would affect it.

[londonloco]

I wet skim, but I also run a Zeovit system, which mandates wet skimming for best results.  

[smallreef]

I think the wood burning changes your o2 levels in your house which would be the only thing that could change your skimmer production, but I can't imagine by much...

[Coral Hind]

I've never heard of O2 levels affecting a skimmer's performance. I think if a wood stove changed O2 levels at all it would increase them. The draft of the wood stove pulling air up and out of the house causes fresh air to leak into the house which would bring in air with a higher O2 level.

[gmerek2]

Ok I think mine does better than 10% also then. I did a quick google search to figure out where I read the smoking thing. It was from my old skimmer directions. I'm hoping it only effects the aqua-c spray injection skimmers. I'm also thinking it was only cigarette smoke which is nice. ". Cigarette smoke will prevent the skimmer from working! Smoke gets sucked into the skimmer and hurts the foaming process."

[s2nhle]

Ok I think mine does better than 10% also then. I did a quick google search to figure out where I read the smoking thing. It was from my old skimmer directions. I'm hoping it only effects the aqua-c spray injection skimmers. I'm also thinking it was only cigarette smoke which is nice. ". Cigarette smoke will prevent the skimmer from working! Smoke gets sucked into the skimmer and hurts the foaming process."

Learn some thing new. I have been in the hobby for around 20yrs and I have not heard anything about this relationship between the skimmer and the smoke before.

[Origami]

The one consideration to give to wet skimming is that it does remove more salt water in the process. Your ATO responds to this loss by adding fresh water. Over time, this can cause your salinity to decline. So, when wet skimming, expect to monitor and manage your salinity a bit more.

[sachabballi reef]

Ok I think mine does better than 10% also then. I did a quick google search to figure out where I read the smoking thing. It was from my old skimmer directions. I'm hoping it only effects the aqua-c spray injection skimmers. I'm also thinking it was only cigarette smoke which is nice. ". Cigarette smoke will prevent the skimmer from working! Smoke gets sucked into the skimmer and hurts the foaming process."

Lol quit and use the money for coral

 

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 4

 

 

[John Ford]

Lol quit and use the money for coral

 

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 4

+1

[ErikS]

The one consideration to give to wet skimming is that it does remove more salt water in the process. Your ATO responds to this loss by adding fresh water. Over time, this can cause your salinity to decline. So, when wet skimming, expect to monitor and manage your salinity a bit more.

Which can balance out quite nicely for those who use two part dosing.

[wangspeed]

More than skimming, I would say it's a concern for CO2 levels, and severely low PH.

[Origami]

More than skimming, I would say it's a concern for CO2 levels, and severely low PH.

Not sure what you mean. If the skimmer is drawing from ambient air in a home, it simply establishes CO2 equilibrium more efficiently. If drawing air from a fresh air source (which often has a lower concentration of CO2), it often raises pH as it "blows off" CO2. This may be more true at night when corals, plants, as well as animals are in respiration (that is, taking in oxygen and releasing CO2, thereby causing the downward swing in pH that is typical at night).

[wangspeed]

Not sure what you mean. If the skimmer is drawing from ambient air in a home, it simply establishes CO2 equilibrium more efficiently. If drawing air from a fresh air source (which often has a lower concentration of CO2), it often raises pH as it "blows off" CO2. This may be more true at night when corals, plants, as well as animals are in respiration (that is, taking in oxygen and releasing CO2, thereby causing the downward swing in pH that is typical at night).

 

Your assumption is that you're taking air in from an outside source.  I would venture to say that 99% of us simply use recirculated inside air.  When our gas oven or stove is on, I can watch my PH on my 90 gallon aquarium plummet very quickly (7.6 or lower), due to CO2 levels, unless I crack the window by the aquarium.  I'm not talking about the typical PH swing from lack of photosynthesis.

[Origami]

Your assumption is that you're taking air in from an outside source.  I would venture to say that 99% of us simply use recirculated inside air.  When our gas oven or stove is on, I can watch my PH on my 90 gallon aquarium plummet very quickly (7.6 or lower), due to CO2 levels, unless I crack the window by the aquarium.  I'm not talking about the typical PH swing from lack of photosynthesis.

This would certainly be the case when you have a rapid increase in ambient CO2. You would see the same effect if there were a large number of guests in your home. This goes exactly to the point that I made that a skimmer would bring the tank into equilibrium with the ambient CO2 level more quickly - that is, the pH would track the shifts in ambient CO2 concentration with a shorter time constant. A skimmer does not, in itself, concentrate CO2 into the tank (beyond what its solubility would be for a given atmospheric partial pressure) making it more acidic which is how I interpreted your post. And, actually, I covered both cases - ambient (indoor) and outside (fresh) air in the post above without assuming one or the other case.

 

Have you considered adding a CO2 absorber on the air intake of your skimmer if such pH swings are a problem?

[wangspeed]

Have you considered adding a CO2 absorber on the air intake of your skimmer if such pH swings are a problem?

 

Yes, I have a high tech system ready to go.  An old juice bottle, soda lime, and a dremel

 

For now, I just crack the windows, and dose kalk.  I never had kalk into the plans for this new tank til I saw the effect of CO2 on PH.

 

Like Londonloco, I run a Zeovit tank.  I skim a little wet on an oversized skimmer.  Hard to believe there's someone else in Manassas running a zeo tank!

 

gmerek2: Just watch the soot and PH.  Even a clean burning wood stove in its optimal heat range will still generate some soot inside the house.  I highly doubt it will effect the skimming itself, unless you get oily residue into the tank, which would definitely increase the surface tension of water, and result in poor skimming.

[mr.x-ray]

If your getting CO2 in your house from your wood stove (not fire place) you have a serious issue that needs to be addressed. It generally means your drawing air down the stack and out the vents on your stove into the house. Which is opposite of proper operation.