protien skimming

[Salt Freak]

What do you recommend about protien skimming on a reef tank. There are things about the protien skimmer pulling out the elements.

 

[Navarre]

You are quite right.
However there are protiend skimmers and there are... Protien skimmers.

I personally prefer to underskim arather than overskim for the very reason you mentioned. I have a prizm skimmer that gets aweful reviews for that very reason. I know others that use much more effieicnet skimmers and find that simple regular water changes keep things in check.

I opted for lower skimming because i use Natural Sea Water (until about a month ago i didnt skim at all) and i felt that skimming would take out the very essence that makes natural sea water so much more appealing to me than artificial salt.

I am currently testing the tank with my prizm again so see how much it extracts and i am amazed ! In the first week of operation i had the cup filled 3 times! So much for mineral mud saying that a skimmer is not needed....

Actually.. scratch that.. Their statement might be true, you possibly DONT need a skimmer on mineral mud but without a skimmer there sure is a load of crap left in there

 

[Salt Freak]

What if I were to put the skimmer on like once a week for the weekend or something. I'm going to use a prizm.