Kessil

How often do you clean your skimmer?

bookfish

bookfish

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I feed a lot more plankton than I used to, and rely on the skimmer for all physical filtration on the tank. I've been cleaning the skimmer once per week but I may have to go to every 4 days. YUCK!!!!
What do you do?
 
Once a week sounds about what I do unless I get lazy. My collection cup doesn't fill up in the "Calfo Recommended, one cup per day" speed, but when it does fill up the neck is usually completely opaque with "poo-stuff" so I use an old toothbrush and make it clear again.
 
You also feed orders of magnitude more than I do, I'm guessing, or at least the smaller sized food particles, more likely to be skimmed out if they're still floating in the water column. I probably get more of a dry skimmate from mine, mostly due to the fact I've had way too many issues of skimmer overflow and it's better for my sanity if the collection cup doesn't fill up to quickly. Unsure how much that actually is, but I don't think my skimmer collection cup is that large. From my last cleaning it's probably been 3 days and my ASM G3 skimmer cup is half full, so I'll probably clean relatively soon.
 
Once a week for me (just did it), I underfeed (only four little fish) and over skim. I usually have about an inch of truck stop coffee lookin stuff in there.
 
[quote author=sfsuphysics link=topic=2401.msg24405#msg24405 date=1189885665]
Do you use any sort of 'protection' to prevent tank draining? So you don't a Borneman like disaster?

[/quote]

I do. I have a float switch in my 5 gallon bucket, so when the bucket fills the skimmer turns off.
 
[quote author=Thales link=topic=2401.msg24414#msg24414 date=1189945311]
[quote author=sfsuphysics link=topic=2401.msg24405#msg24405 date=1189885665]
Do you use any sort of 'protection' to prevent tank draining? So you don't a Borneman like disaster?

[/quote]

I do. I have a float switch in my 5 gallon bucket, so when the bucket fills the skimmer turns off.
[/quote]
I won't say what i just thought in case Poseidon or Murphy is monitoring this forum.
 
The 120g:

I empty the skimmer cup every other day. I skim really wet.

The fish are few twice a day via the auto-feeder.


The 58g - I skim dryer, and empty out the skimmer cup once a week. I feed once a day on this tank.
 
Well I just did a Flatworm Exit treatment on my softie tank, and had to empty my collection cup three times in one day..

Lost a foxface, and most of the corals look poopoo. After siphoning out the buggers I kept saying "where'd they come from" as I started fishing out all the little bodies. Looks like I nabbed them all.. but I'll continue to run carbon for the next few days until things start perking up.
 
Eileen, how often do you clean the reduction neck (if you have one) and the riser chamber?
I need to know how often you get splattered in skimmer glop so i can feel better about my glop experiences.
Thx-Jim
 
I assume you are talking about the skimmer collection cup assembly (which would include the union fitting) and not the skimmer body itself right?
 
Yeah, I can't imagine how nasty my skimmer would get if I had it draining into a bucket. Let it get real nasty, throw it out buy a new one, I like the idea the more I think about it.

I'm going to pick up some Muriatic today to make my skimmer all shiny and new. I do that about every 4-5 months.
 
I clean out that portion of the skimmer cup every time I empty the cup. I don't what's nastier the skimmer reduction portion or that nasty solids at the bottom of the skimmer cup.

I have an ER 8-2 (eight inch skimmer body) so that skimmer cup is a two-handed affair to unscrew and carry over to the sink and clean out.
 
Clean my every week...riser and cup! Anything less would make my skimmer useless to me since they really don't add anything other then removal of DOCs and such. They really don't add much O2 to the system according to resent trials done by Eric B.
 
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