No Fred. The most turbulent water flow is actually in the deeper ocean. The waves crashing up from a surf is what causes the foam akin to a protein skimmer. The easiest way to check your theory is to put water collected from the top of the tank in a jar and some from the center and some from the bottom of the tank. Shake them all vigorously and see what happens. You will probably see no difference whatsoever. Now do the same in a tank with very little flow and scoop up the film from the top of the tank and the water will foam up. Why?? the answer is clear. There would be an abundance of build up where it was allowed to accumulate at the waters surface because there was inadequate water flow to disperse it into the entire water column.
Low flow tanks allow the "visible scum, slick" to gather at the surface of the tank. Meanwhile in high flow tanks you will not see this. That is not to say that the same amount of organic matter does not exist in the same bodies of water. I have seen tanks with low or no flow (water movement) smother the entire tank with the buildup of waste matter in no time at all
The slow flow theory that you make is not an absolute one. Like I said. If you were to put an undersized skimmer on a tank where every drop of water flowed through the skimmer, the skimmer would still not be able to keep up with the production demand of a fully stocked tank with a heavy bio-load. It's also about a matter of contact time, skimmer type and volume
This is why when people put super sized skimmers on their tanks they stop working after an initial rush of cleaning and then nothing. Also when gravity feeding skimmers, once you get the skimmer fed properly where there is less turbulence from the water being fed. The skimmer will produce a much more constant and steady foam head production. The problem with in sump skimmers is that if the sump is not built properly and a constant water level is not kept, the foam can and will break down before anything can reach the inside of the cup.
Perfect example of skimmers that work best when gravity fed are Deltec skimmers. Once they are set you don't need to touch them again unless you just like to fuss with things. Beckett skimmers are the worst at trying to control and are definitely not set and forget it skimmers. But once again if you are proficient at tuning a beckett you will get way more skimmate from them than from a re-circ/needle/mesh wheel skimmer any day.
Gravity feeding is a great way to feed a skimmer without the use of a an additional pump (less power and less breakdown). It gets the main tank water directly to the skimmer to be cleaned (good but not perfect) and it saves on plumbing
I would rather have a filter sock catch most of the larger particulate matter first, then have the skimmer deal with the minute particles and DOC.
PS: Where is my food man ??
