View Full Version : Miricale Mud And A Skimmer
I will be setting a new tank up in the next couple of weeks now I am home!
Question
If I were to set up a tank with 1/2 the reccomended amount of MM in my sump, and skimmed at half the recommened amount, would I get the best of both worlds?
Having recently spent a lot of time in the US, I am really interested in the MM route - I have seen many excellent tanks................ But I still am not 100% sure about not having a skimmer.
Has anyone run the two side by side - did it work for you?
Cheers
Chris
I've been experimenting with this for a few months. I wouldn't recommend half the MM, go for a proper bed for the size of sump that you have.
I have found that adding a skimmer to my ecosystem produces a lot of smelly gunk but has no benefits to the livestock whatsoever. Sponges, gorgonians don't change. Nitrate and phosphate levels stayed exactly the same.
It would appear for some strange reason that whatever the skimmer is pulling out doesn't have any affect on livestock anyway.
That's just my experience over the past few months.
Great thanks for the heads up - anyoneelse?
chronic2005
08-08-05, 21:08
im planning to go skimmerless and the majority of people go skimmerless (we had a poll). my opioion dont skim, but thats just me.
thanks
I have a conventional ( full amount ) Miracle Mud System, but it is now recommended to go for a skimmer as well, which I have done. Got no probs with it. It's working well. I think the MM may not work at half depth. Go the whole hog for what the difference in cost is. Why chance it?
When you see what the skimmer takes out, as well as the MM system, you realise that all that crap would still be in the water.
hth
chronic2005
08-08-05, 21:35
philfish, they recommend a particular skimmer which is nto a normal skimmer. it is desined just to puul out the crap and not so much of the good stuff.
thanks
MM beds do not replace the skimmer, regular large water changes do. we do 20% fortnightly.
skimming the system with an undersized skimmer will just destroy your plankton content and inhibit your sponge growth but only remove half as much gunk as you need it to. You can run calupera beds with skimmers but it's not really a MM system more of a hybrid.
In the last two years of MM system i have hooked up my old TF1000 once and was amazed at how little it actually pulled out especially as my calupera had gone sexual (hence the skimmer)
If you do decide to go the MM route get kent biosediment instead as it's a bit cheaper and IMHO a better product as it actually tells you what it is on the side of the tub ( river estuary sediment).
HTH
Roddy
Thanks all
Just pondering some ideas, I will keep you posted
Originally posted by philfish@Aug 8 2005, 20:23
I have a conventional ( full amount ) Miracle Mud System, but it is now recommended to go for a skimmer as well, which I have done. Got no probs with it. It's working well. I think the MM may not work at half depth. Go the whole hog for what the difference in cost is. Why chance it?
When you see what the skimmer takes out, as well as the MM system, you realise that all that crap would still be in the water.
hth
Where exactly did you get this recommendation to go for a skimmer with MM. Very curious. I have heard this a lot but never seen a recommendation from EcoSystems themselves.
cheers, john
FYI I run a MM sump too.
Yeah I've never heard of Ecosystem saying that either. I've been watching the livestock as I turned my skimmer off again. The Gorgs and sun corals definately have more polyp extension in the day. I've also been putting less live food into the system, and its still improved.
I'll be leaving it off for aquite a white now to see what happens.
i ran MM in my old 75 and backed this up with a deltec mc500.
i tried running it without the skimmer for a few days and when i switched the skimmer back on it worked it's ass off for the next few days.
i know that underworld use a skimmer on their own show system themselves now as it was in a thread here a few months back.
i know that underworld use a skimmer on their own show system themselves now as it was in a thread here a few months back.
Where did you hear that from Wayne, that's news to me! For the record, our show tank has never been maintained with a protein skimmer in the 4 years it's been set up. Here's the latest pic, taken a couple of weeks ago.
http://www.ultimatereef.net/uploads/latestsm.jpg
Regards,
Des
PS: Skimmer use - from our experience (and many hobbyists), you can run Miracle Mud system successfully without the need for one. The unit with a skimmer is part of the Pro-Series. It was brought out for the convenience of those who prefer to have a skimmer. Both works, just differently.
i stand corrected..........but there was a thread on here describing the large show tank that you have (or were in the process of revamping) and that said you had added a skimmer.
no offense intended.
btw why did my old system with the correct amount of MM need a skimmer?.....there was a definite decrease in water quality when i removed one?
i started off setting the skimmer up on a timer and i decreased it by an hour a week for a while then removed it.
end result was higher phosphate and nitrate readings and a definite decrease in health of corals.
damned if i can find the bleedin' link now!!!!!
someone must remember it?
it was during a discussion on this site about MM and there was a link to the tank....if memory serves me correctly it was over a discussion regarding the cost of MM over a long period compared to the price of a high performance skimmer.
On my tank i have set-up a small DIY hang-on refugium for macro algae and MM
but i will also be using a small skimmer as well like an Aquamedic Midiflotor to remove any yellowness from the water which is a common problem with skimmerless tanks
Elliott
i had a mce600 skimmer on my mineral mud system but corals never really looked great so i turned the skimmer off and have been reaping the rewards since my conclusion is that you only need a small skimmer or not one at all good skimmers just remove what the mineral mud puts in
Use carbon or even better Seachem's Paraguard to remove the yellow in your water, a skimmer's total overkill if that's all its for.
Mineral mud does not release any proteins as far as I know, only minerals for algae growth and health. A skimmer has as much chance of removing that as it does of removing calcium.
Hi Wayne. I would guess that slowly turning down your skimmer would be a bad idea when switching over to an ecosystem. Having a skimmer on even for a few hours a day is enough to wipe out a big chunk of the food chain that you're trying to build up in the system.
If your nitrates and phosphates shot up its probably because your algae bed wasn't big enough for the system you ran it on, or didn't have enough light. Either way, not up to the job rather than a system that just doesn't work.
I now believe that systems that use skimmer and mineral mud beds should be called something else completely. It's a hybrid system. The skimmer will masacre the food chain in the tank, but will remove crap that would otherwise stay in the system. On the other hand the algae would still pump some live food in the main system and still help with nitrates and phosphates too (and maybe HLLE). So, it kind of makes sense for all tanks to have a mud sump anyway (providing there's room).
I'm going to be setting up a new system soon to see what this hybrid system is like. I suspect it won't be all that hot for filter feeders as the MM system is, but it might be better for fish, fish disease control (ozone) and maybe SPS will appreciate the skimmer.
All the best,
Andy
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