Brown Rust Colored Sludge in Protein Skimmer

[nawlins9175]

Hello, new to the site and looking for some advice.

I hooked up a bak pak protein skimmer last weekend and I don't know if it's working correctly. Since I hooked it up, I've only collected about 1/2 cup of smelly green liquid in the collection cup.

In the body of the skimmer there is a lot of buildup of a brown slimy sludge. Is this normal? None in my tank except for around the intake and output of my emperor 400 filter. Looks like brown hair algae, but not sure?

Water parameters:

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
PH 8.2
Alk 11.2
Calcium 300 (I'm working on this)
Phos .5
Nitrate between 20-40
Salinity 1.0245

Any advice?

I've been having some Nitrate issues since moving my tank about 3 weeks ago. With pwc got them down from around 100 to 20 or so, but no lower. I removed the biowheels and pads from my filter and added two more powerheads. I now run the filter with just the carbon cartridges.

Any advice on how to get it down further besides more pwc? ( 3 of 20% i n last 2 weeks to get to where I'm at now ) I use RO water and it tests 0 Nitrates and PHos. Not sure if I want to use AZ NO3. I've read good and bad things about it. I want to increase my cleanup crew by adding some more snails, crabs, and a couple of cleaner shrimp but I'm scared of the high nitrates.

What do you think?

[angelscrx]

You can add a some Nitrate sponge media in a sock if you have a sump. It works pretty good even though I am not a fan of things like that. I like to get rid of the stuff as naturely as possible but mine wasn't going down as fast I wanted it so I got tthis stuff and it worked.

[melosu58]

20 is not horrible even though we want to shoot for 0. How often are you feeding? Need to feed every other day. Been doing this in my tank for 8 yrs.

[nawlins9175]

I feed every other day. Definitely not overfeeding. I have been thinking about switching out to a sand bottom to facilitate more Nitrate removal. Should have done it when moving my tank.

What about this brown slime sludge in my protein skimmer body, not the collection cup? Is this normal?

Will a level of 20-40 Nitrates kill my new cleanup crew?

[melosu58]

I am taking it that you have CC in your tank. If you do then that is a source of nitrates and a switch to sand would be beneficial. 20 - 40 will not kill them in the short term but it`s not what you want to plan on in the long term. As far as the sludge just pull the skimmer out and clean it out. That will be less that you have to worry about in your tank.

[Feron]

I have a skimmer (that I hate) that does this very thing.
I was sold it when I was a newb to aquaria.. the thing was designed to be mostly submerged, which put water pressure on the pump, raising the internal water level of the skimmer to 'just the right spot'.

I curse that LFS everytime I have to take the cup off and scoop fish poop out by hand.
It's possible that's what's occuring to you, as with all things tho, read up and follow the instructions for the equipment (unless you are like me, and got none..grr..).

Taking it out and cleaning it is about the only recourse other then manual removal of poo.
(unless you do what I did, and fill the sump to the maximum water level and keep it there, bringing the water high enough to do a halfway decent job).