Aqua C Remora Pain

[Brian]

I installed this skimmer on the 28th of Dec. and just recently installed a 96 watt T-5 setup for lighting. The lighting is creating tons of green glass algae which I wipe off the front daily, no big deal right, well I think the skimmer is starting to feel the effects of all the algae production. For the last three days the cup and PVC overflow have been full of green tea colored skimmate with the cup adjusted to its highest setting. I'm curious if my problem is normal or anomalous? How do I get coffee skimmate? Bad skimmer? I was contemplating a fuge but may move up my timeline if the algae keeps the skimmer on constant overdrive. Am I calling this thing right or are there other considerations:?:

[Reefkeeper78]

I would go with a fuge Brian. Also how long are you leaving your lights on for. How often do you feed your fish? Usually algae blooms come from too many phosphates in the water. Are you using tap water to replace evaporation? As far as i know your brand of skimmer is pretty good and with the size tank you have more then adequate. Hope this helps Tony

[Brian]

12 hours light period for the SPS, not much choice there. Running Phosguard and carbon so phosphates shouldn't be a problem. But I haven't got that test kit. yes on the tap, but again, carbon and Phosguard to mitigate. 0 Nirite, 20 Nitrate.

[Reefkeeper78]

I would try to use RO/RD water if you can. Thats prob the cause of your nitrates and phosphates. If youcan try to get your nitrates below 5 through water changes. Also how long do you keep your phosguard in there? I heard that if you leave that in the water too long phosphates can leach back into the water. Also 12 hours is too much time with the light on. 10 hours is more then plenty for sps or any other coral for that matter. Forgot to ask, How much are you feeding your fish and coral?

[Salty]

1.) have to run RO/DI water. To keep out all of the bad stuff that makes this hobby tough to diagnose when things go wrong
2.) having you skimmer in a sump instead of the DT will keep the water level always at the same height.

my skimmer would overflow sometimes and other times do nothing at all because of evaporation. i put it in the sump and within 3 days it was getting the grossest stuff out of the water I'd ever seen

[Brian]

Ya,ya,ya RO/DI, never get tired of hearing that, My water lvls and chem levels are good, this is about green skimmate, not a toxic tank. Nitrate level is good for my Xenia, don't want to change that. Simple question light=green skimmate? Not really asking what a perfect setup looks like.

[Flash]

Got Snails?

On the skimmer you may need to restrict pump flow at this point in time. You can also drill a hole in your skim cup, run tubing to dump skim into a bigger container. If your tank is against a wall, and your skimmer is hang on back style, it sure would be ugly to have skim spilling over the cup.

My initial suggestion would be to get some snails, and reduce feeding and light time. If your not running RODI then I would be using a good carbon to soak up all those undesirable chemical elements we don't even test 4. Good luck.

[joemarchetti]

Just to throw my 2 cents in, I haven't really ever run ro/di on my tanks. I would take your photo period down to at least 10 possibly even 8 hours. Those hob remorqs are tempermental though. Good luck

[Brian]

Got a few, getting a few more I guess(snails) running a bag if carbon I change every three weeks, skimmer has an overflow(PVC tube 3') thats full as well as the cup, the cup won't overflow, the chamber foam outlit is lower than the top of the overflow cup, so when it's full it just flows back into the tank. Still no answer though? Algae=tons of green tea skimmate? Ya, guess the light periods gunna drop mabye, but seems like there should be a comprmise given lvls of watts if seen put into other tanks.

[mr.x-ray]

When ever you change something you will see a reaction in your tank even sometimes in the skimmer. I changed my MH's today to make life better for my charges and now my Poco frag is PO'd. Luckly I had not fixed his position and now he's down lower for now.

Green Tea is wet skimming. Can you adjust the air intake? Lower volume of air might help for now. Or raise the skimmer, lowering water level in it? This helps to dry out skimming, too. Just remember, one adjustment a day.

20-30 snails and half again hermits. Water changes of 25%/7.25g or more monthly. Amounts to equal that amount done weekly would be better IMHO, say 2g a week to make a nice round number.

A lot of times we will have algea but no detectable PO because the algea is useing it just as fast as its introduced. And most test kits do not test to absolute zero then factor margine of error.

[sergeyo]

when i get watery skimmate i reduce the skimming speed and out comes the thick stuff
why?
because it takes longer for the bubbles to become thick enough with poo to come through the spout
wich makes for thicker recipe

[Flash]

Updates?
Better, Same, Worse, ???

[Brian]

Just got back from five days in Oahu. Got the snorkel and scuba a lot.The Waikiki Aquarium is bananas. I'll post some pics of that later. My wife took care of the tank while I was gone, and she did a good enough job I guess. I set the skimmer cup very high while I was gone so the overflow's didn't overflow. It worked, she never emptied the PVC pipe and it was only half full in 6 days. Which is good news, the bad news is that the skimmate, even though it was skimming very little compared to the usual it still is green tea, albeit very dark green tea. The tank water itself if very green also with low clarity. I did a one third water change before I left and dropped the photo period down to ten hours of 48 watts and 4 hours of 96 watts. I guess this is just a new tank/no fug issue that will not be solved without some macro algae in the system. Today I lowered the cup way down so the overflow is going to pull a ton of wet skimmate, but maybe I can lower the green tint in the water this way. I'll keep you updated.

[palmer373]

wow that reallys sucks about the water clarity. i battled that for like 8 months in my 29 FW. and about oahu, I LOVE THAT PLACE! hanama bay is great but the aquarium is the bomb! wish i had a SW and knew more about it when i went tho

please post pics

[Brian]

CRACKED THE CODE!!! So I lowered the skimmer cup and let it go crazy pulling tons of green water out of the tank. I let the skimmer pull probably about 5+ gallons over the course of today adding premix as I went and boom it's almost 11pm and the tank it crystal clear. So the lesson is let the skimmer pull green tea like crazy until there is none left to pull and the tiger will settle down. My guess is after a couple of days on this routine there won't be enough dissolved organics for large algae propagation and brown skimmate will follow. Update to follow.

[aquariumreef]

So is there a problem with this kind of protein skimmer? I'm a little worried because I'm getting mine delivered today.

Sean

[grantypoo]

Nope, they actually get pretty good reviews, one of people's favorite small skimmers that dont have to be in a sump.

[aquariumreef]

Thanks! Can't wait to get it now!


Sean

[Brian]

Its very good, to good in the way of the bubble production is huge, but it has a learning curve in finding the sweet spot that doesn't lower your tank levels to much. I think I have that formula mostly figured out and I went from adjustment every few hours for a couple days to adjustment every other day. I could theoretically pull the pre-filter box and lower the cup and let it pull more and adjust every week or so but the water level would be affected. I water quality is great now, I don't think the "low" maintenance skimmer exists. Though i have had people refer to there skimmers as such.

[aquariumreef]

Yeah, it seems to work good. It already made 1/8 cup of skimate in just 4-5 hours! Was used before, so maybe that was why it started working so good? The stuff it produces is watery, with a creamy coffee color. Has stopped making micro bubbles too!

Sean

Ps: I think I may have gotten the pro, for $100!