How can you tell if you’re “Heavy” skimming?

[WayneL333]

I have a BK 250 external skimmer and I want to heavily skim my gross 375 gallon system. How do I know if it’s being heavily skimmed? My collection cup is about 1/5 full every week with dark sludge. My water level is at



Is that high enough?

Thanks,

~ w

[o2manyfish]

To me heavy is when the skimmate doesn't slosh in the cup, and there are actual solid chunks on the sides of the cup.

The smell should make you gag. And you need to soak the cup to get the sludge to loosen up before you can clean and empty the cup.

Dave B

[nbd13]

Wayne,

if you want to get more skimmate you need to raise the water level.

on my BK 300 internal i have the water level about 1" down from the top of the "neck"

so its about 5ish inches up into the collection cup... and from the other way 1" down from the end of the "neck" of the skimmer.

i have to empty the collection cup 1-2 days or it will overflow. I get a light colorec skimmate, like light tea colored.

i want to skim like this because, i feed alot (well atleast IMO 2x a day w/ 3/4-1 sheet of nori) and am going to have a high fish load.

i might lower the water level by an 1" or so to get it alittle darker.... still havent decided if i want to lower the water level yet....

HTH let me knwo if that doesnt make sense...

Nick

[prodman]

Well there is wet skimming which is what Nick is talking about. And dry skimming like Dave likes. I skim wet and it works for me. I like to get junk out asap. I dont know whick is better. But to answer your question I think someone is skimming heavy when they have a larger than needed skimmer. How you set it after that is personal preference imo.
Paul

[nbd13]

Wayne by Heavy to you mean dry skimmate? or wet skimmate?

Nick

[WayneL333]

Wayne by Heavy to you mean dry skimmate? or wet skimmate?

Nick

What do you mean by skimmate (wow, I guess I just asked a newb question)?

I suppose I am dry skimming now. The sludge does build up pretty badly on the inside and outside of the neck. I have to submerse it weekly and scrub it out with a wet paper towel. It looks I want to move to wet skimming to see if I can bring my PO4. It's currently at .1 ppm.

Thanks for all the replies, BTW. :icon_bigg

[nbd13]

Haha,

actually you know i clean my skimmer every week and even though i am wet skimming i get a build up of "gunk" on the inside of the neck of the skimmer. I have a tooth brush that i use to get it off. I have to put the tooth brush under water after every pass because it has so much gunk on it....

i would raise the water level by raising the height of the output pipe (the red pipe or pipes if yours has dual outlets...)

HTH

Nick

[WayneL333]

Hey Nick,

Thanks, it does help. I raised the water level so that it is in the neck. The skimming is noticeably increased. Hopefully my PO4 readings will go down. I may raise the level a little more next week.

TFTH!!!

[Ger]

I have a tooth brush that i use to get it off.

Nick, I hope it's not your girlfriend's toothbrush...

[DMK]

i always believed wet skimming is superior. i tried both. i like it wet.

[WayneL333]

Can you guys tell me what the difference is between wet and dry skimming?

[nbd13]

Gary- i think she would shoot me, i already get yelled at because of the smell when i empty it too late at night....

Wayne- wet skimming is exactly what it sounds like. You get a more wet skimmate ie. more light colored skimmate. Its like a light tea colored skimmate.

dry skimming is what you have been doing all along.... you get a darker skimmate usually the more wet you skim the more skimmate you get.

some one that is skimming wet will get more skimmate than some one who is dry skimming...

does that make more sense?

the closer the water level to the top of the skimmer the more "wet" the skimmate will be.

dose that make sense?

or do you need me to explain it a different way?

Nick

[WayneL333]

Can you explain it in Chinese for me too No, it makes perfect sense. Thanks for all the help. I'll be ready for Zeovit soon I think.

[nbd13]

Haha well i could try, but not sure you could make anything out of what i am woudl be saying, haha.

no problem Wayne.

Nick

[Horace]

I personally like to run it wet as well. If you run it dry I would imagine the neck would get dirty MUCH faster. I take a drinking glass cleaning brush and run it down the neck once a week, one push in, pull out and its clean. I normally get about 1 liter+ of dark brown skimmate per week off of my 75g. Im not sure if thats considered "heavy" or not but I think its pretty damn good personally. Especially seeing I built the skimmer myself.

This is my skimmate cup off of my DIY recirc needle wheel skimmer:

This shows the amount of skimmate and how dirty the cup gets in about 4 days of skimming.




This is a 1.5 liter bottle (1500ml), double the size of a normal wine bottle.