Primary means of filtration?

[dendro982RC]

From what I had seen in the other keepers system descriptions, they have a sump with permanent skimming on, without turning it off during feeding. And no mechanical filtration, skimmer only.

The skimmers I have (venturi and air-driven) are stopping skimming for a while, after adding next portion of the food. Not much water cleaning during the day time.

How do you keep the water clean?
What am I missing?

[KeithM]

I am using:

Live rock
Large oversized skimmer
Ozone & UV-C to break down organics
Zeolite stones - ammonium absorbtion & bacteria growth
Carbon Source (ultrabak) - to feed bacteria and reduce nutrients
Phosphate removers and Active Carbon
Weekly 10% water change

I don't turn off my skimmer during feeding but it does some times stop skimming for about an hour or so after feeding

[dendro982RC]

Is skimmer recirculating or not? How oversized is it?
I tried rated for 75g/275L venturi (not recirculating) skimmer on 10g/38L and 20g/72L tanks, not too much skimmate, while the tank doesn't looks clean, even with 25x tank volume per hour water turnover.

And how many times a day you are feeding?
You see, with my 8x daily, it equals 8 hours of no skimming...
Thanks.

[Jens Kallmeyer]

HI

I have a skimmer (Grotech HEA 150) running permanently with about 50 to 70 mg/h Ozone, plus ca. 150 ml of Ultraphos that I exchange every 10 days or so. I run activated carbon in a slow moving filter tube permanently. There is some mechanical filtration, one layer of filter floss in the first chamber of the sump, that floss is exchanged every week.
I feed 2 or 3 times in the morning, when the lights are still out, and as soon as I get back from work until I go to bed. I would say that I feed at least 8 doses per day. My automatic feeder is still not working as well as I want, currently it sits on bench waiting for service.

Jens

[dendro982RC]

Thank!
Can you specify type of a skimmer - beckett, venturi, recirculating, and how many times oversized for a tank (recommended for what tank volume, comparing to existing)?

And physical amount of food (2-3 x15 ml?) for a tank volume (100g/380L?), if possible. Trying to get the whole picture.

Does skimmate production drops during and after feeding? How fast water becomes cleaned by skimmer - 1-2 hrs or more (visual assessment)?

How soon the sump and skimmer pump require cleaning?
I'm using micron sock, without it the sump becomes dirty within days, with the chopped seafood and mysis floating and rotting there...

[Calyx]

i use seaclone (runs like schuran) venturi skimmer and seachem purigen. water is crystal clear.
clean skimmer every weekend. it stops skimming about an hour after feeding but does the job at night.

if you want a clear water, you may use "aquavital nitrigon 2"
You got to know that, after using this product, skimmer skims like no tomorrow. you probably will empty skimmer cup 6 times in 3 hours.
it is better you prapare 20 litres of water before nitrigon2. because it is the amount of skimming in 6 hours.

edit: sorry guys, i thought it is easy to find nitrigon2 in the uk.
7 euro shipping to uk:
http://www.aquaristikshop.com/cgi-bin/neu/webshop.pl?userid=OAzyGdfaVQ4n8J5etp9TlJTAWvge1ucZ Pdh&f=NR&c=147020&t=temartic_e

[KeithM]

I am using an ultraskim2 with meshwheel rated for 1500l tank. My whole system is less than 150l.

At the moment, I am feeding 2-3 x 15ml test tubes filled with a frozen dilluted mix of ultrapac (coral slime), ultralife (carrier) soaked in amino acids, particule foods (cyclops, rotifers, ultraclam, MinF, Ultraseafan). I use to feed this mix via a peri pump and would leave it out for about a week or so. However, after about a week, the smell was so bad we could barely walk near the tank!! So I have now stopped this and my gf has allowed me to sleep in the bedroom again :D

I also feed a mix paste of MinS (amino acids) MinF and Seafan. This is done quite a few times during the day manually but I aim to switch this over to using a peri pump soon. AT the moment, I am making a wet paste and keeping it stored in a syringe for easy feeding.

Lastly, I also feed a dry mix of particulate foods in my auto feeder such as reef roids, coral frenzy, Zooton, and some of the fauna marin foods.

[dendro982RC]

My apologies for being persistent: any chance to get the type of skimmer (beckett, venturi, injected, air-stone)? You already know that, and I have to do an additional research on skimmer, I'll never have :)

If no mechanical filtration, how dirty sump will become in a few days?
I have usual 90g/342l reef and fish tank (plus sun corals), and even then leftovers are the problem.

Have 2.5x (250g/950l tank rated) plain (not recirculating) venturi skimmer on 90g tank, 4-7x (40 or 75g/150l and 285l rated) venturi skimmers - on 10 and 20g tanks.

aquavital nitrigon 2:
I want to cry - I'm in Canada. No HatchFry, no Golden Pearls, no aquavital nitrigon 2...

[fire999]

Why not place some fine FILTER WOOL at the first part of your sump ? this will collect any suspended matter and polish the water up nicely

[dendro982RC]

Did, in overflow box: barely cleans, not speaking of polishing, and the filter wool have to be changed every few hours (not clogs, but bubbles in wool, with no source of bubbles in the tank), otherwise water level in the sump drops and skimmer stops skimming (venturi kind is sensitive to water level).

I have to use micron sock at the sump entry, but nobody else from NPC keepers do so, and they advice against it.

Trying to figure out, how their systems work.