Skimmer on a Nanocube

[Anonymous]

Ok, lately I've been dwelling on this and I think I'm going to do it.

I have my HOB Remora ... All I have to do is cut a small section out of the back of the nanocube. The area where the right fan vent is. If I use a nice coping saw or something, it should look fairly clean. And if I buy one of those plastic hinges for aquarium lids (of the 2 glass slat variety), I can hinge the part I cut out in place to form a protective flap.

It'll look just like a chimney on the back. Also I checked and the height is perfect. So let me ask the experts this...

Since it would be located in the sump, the VOLUME (not quality) of water it can skim is limited by what passes through the sump ... ie how fast is my main pump for the nanocube. Will this make it overfilter the water, since the pump on the skimmer is actually a little stronger? I am worried that because the flow thru the sump is lower, the skimmer "concentrates" on one portion of water more before it passes through.

Does that make sense? I'm having trouble elucidating today.

Thanks

 

[Anonymous]

Makes perfect sense, and I wouldn't worry about it much. With that skimmer you're going to be 'overskimming' (if such a word is allowed...big controversy) on such a small tank anyway.

Just out of curiousity, what kind of pump does the skimmer use? You could connect some hose to the intake, so that you could sort of direct where it was picking up water from, maybe like the bottom left corner of the 'sump'.

 

[Anonymous]

Ok that leads me into my next two questions ...

1. Can a skimmer (my skimmer) be run with a smaller pump for "less skimming"? or will that cause it not to operate correctly etc? The skimmer takes a maxijet1200 ... which I think is way overpowered for this. I was hoping to cut it in half and use a mj600 (which i conveniently happen to have laying around)

2. how big of a deal is overskimming (yes, i want to open that can of worms).

The reason I'm bent on a skimmer is because I seem to be getting the film on the top ... boo! I've reduce food, increased frequency (but not volume) of W/C's and all kinds of stuff ... still got scum.

Thanks for the reply, matt!

 

[Anonymous]

You'll get scum no matter how much you skim if the water is not overflowing into the sump. The problem is that your drain is not taking water from the surface, but just a bit below it. I would build one of those small overflow boxes to solve this, or drop your water level a bit.

1. I'm not really sure. Best way to find out is to throw it on and see what happens. I have a MJ 1200 as my return, you could do that too.

2. *possibly* a deal in your tank. IIRC you have softies in there, right? IME softies do better in lightly skimmed tanks, but there are countless opinions on this one. There was a lengthy thread on this issue in the GRD a while back.

 

[Anonymous]

Yep, in fact it's primarily softies, and that's all I really care to put in there.

Thanks for the tip on the overskimming thread, I'll go read that.

In the mean time I will construct an overflow box. Can you give me any tips on that? I don't understand how putting the box there is going to make the water in the sump area remain lower ... I'm a visual person and usually a picture would help as well

*goes to dig up the threads about this DIY project*

 

[Anonymous]

Hopefully this pic helps.
http://reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t ... rflow+idea

When the box is there, the only path the water can go is to flow *over* the wall of the box, and it takes that oily film with it. As your tank is right now, the water is being sucked up at a point an inch or so below the water surface.

Imagine the oily film is dead leaves floating on the surface in a pool. If the filter is sucking from 8 feet deep, it'll never get the leaves. If you have an overflow though, like a lot of pools do, you will see the leaves all slowly drift towards it. You can see the same thing when draning a bathtub if there's a scum on the water. The scum will remain stagnant when the level of water is high, but as soon as that little whirlpool starts, it sucks up all the scum on the surface.

I'm sure you've seen this before--get a shot glass, or other small clear glass. Watch from underneath your water surface, so you can see what happens with the oily film. Put the glass right side up, but tilt it just a tad. Now lower it into the tank...slowly. Right when water starts to flow into the glass, you'll notice that if you just let the water trickle in, it will suck up the oily film like crazy. This is what an overflow box does--it continuously sucks up that oily film.

I hope this makes some sense...

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks! That helps a lot.

What I didn't understand is what would happen as the water evaporated. I had thought that mabye it would empty the sump and burn out the pump. But I understand now that the pump will keep pumping water in the display area till it fills, keeping the display water level at exactly the same height ... and as evap occurs, the sump water will lower ... so burn out is a problem, but only in extreme cases, correct? I attend my tank enough where it would not be a problem (I already top off daily). So before I decide yay or nay on the skimmer itself, I'll add the surface skimmer. I've been meaning to anyhow.

...
Back to overskimming
...

I've read up on the overskimming thread and the other spin offs (jeez, podman sure eliminated any research for me, thx pod!), as well as some of the linked stuff ... what I took out of the debate is that:

1. Primary concern of overskimming is removal of macronutrients for softies. Ie: phyto etc.

2. It's not permanently sustaining anyhow, it requires replentishment from the hobbyist regardless
...

For now I'm going to construct the surface skimmer box. What I'm thinking is that I still might be able to put the skimmer on. This seems weird, but what if I added the skimmer and then started my own green water culture? That way I could skim it - perhaps it's overskimming - to reap the benefits of really pristine water in an overskimmed tank, and then start dosting from my green water culture. The skimmer would probably pick up a great deal of that, but enough would remain in the water column to feed the shrooms, right?

Or is that recockulous?

 

[Anonymous]

Not recockulous, just a bit involved. It's way too much work for me, anyway.

You're right on about the water levels...I'm guessing you've never had a sump before? The water level in the main tank will stay exactly the same, but the back will lower as it evaporates. You've got a good 6" before your pump runs dry, which is plenty of space.

Phyto isn't a macronutrient, it's a cell. In any case, I doubt there's any phyto at all in an unskimmed OR skimmed tank, except that which the hobbyist adds. Difference is that it remains in the water column longer in an unskimmed tank. This is why I use live phyto in my unskimmed tanks, as it won't die and decay right away. For such a small tank a small bottle of DTs will last a while.

You may want to check out this article about phyto as well:
http://www.reefs.org/library/talklog/r_ ... 02500.html


In any case, I think there are other corals besides softies that can do better in unskimmed tanks. Goniopora is one that seems to do better in unskimmed tanks, although it usually ends up dying in either type. Likewise, stony corals from lagoon areas (this includes some SPS corals) with lots of nutrients in the water can do better in such tanks. Mushrooms are certainly a type that can thrive, if not do much better, in an unskimmed tank. You can also just feed them directly with small bits of meat if you really want them to take off.

 

[Anonymous]

Well, I made myself the deal of "no more fish tanks for a while" in trade for a new vehicle ... and I just got approved today, so ... I get to focus my efforts on the existing tank.

You guess correctly about me not having a sump. Apartment life prohobits large and involved setups. Someday ... I'll settle down

I'm going to start with the surface skimmer.
Then I'm going to make a green water setup.
Then I'm going to add the skimmer itself.
Then it's going to be awesome.

Thx for the extra info!

 

[nanite]

Ok, lately I've been dwelling on this and I think I'm going to do it.

I have my HOB Remora ... All I have to do is cut a small section out of the back of the nanocube. The area where the right fan vent is. If I use a nice coping saw or something, it should look fairly clean. And if I buy one of those plastic hinges for aquarium lids (of the 2 glass slat variety), I can hinge the part I cut out in place to form a protective flap.

It'll look just like a chimney on the back. Also I checked and the height is perfect. So let me ask the experts this...

Since it would be located in the sump, the VOLUME (not quality) of water it can skim is limited by what passes through the sump ... ie how fast is my main pump for the nanocube. Will this make it overfilter the water, since the pump on the skimmer is actually a little stronger? I am worried that because the flow thru the sump is lower, the skimmer "concentrates" on one portion of water more before it passes through.

Does that make sense? I'm having trouble elucidating today.

Thanks

Hi Hwarang

I just got a secondhand Prizm Deluxe skimmer for my nano tank,, i got this for $150 aud, if you had brought it new in Australia then your looking at paying $300 to $350 aud.

regards from Len