More on Protien Skimming.

[Phiberop]

I have FO 46 gallon and have a seaclone 100 PS. I hear to keep it running all the time and to do half and half. What would be appropiate. For my situation. When I run the PS it dumps mass amounts of microbubbles into my tank. Is that ok for the fish?

Plus how do i know where to set the air flow at?? What determines that??

Thanks

[TheMadNucleus]

Massive micro sized bubbles can actually be problematic for fish if exposed to them in certain and consistent ways. The small bubbles attach to the membranes of the gills and can cause all sorts of mildly problematic to very problematic conditions.

This is one of the disadvantages with PS - another being mineral stripping.

I have run many a FO tanks w/o skimmers but this is sort of a point of debate - many will tell you it is absolutely necessary and others will say it's optional.

Bottom line is the level of DOC in your tank. These values are likely to be closely realted to the level of other boi-filtering you have in the tank. If you power your PS down for awhile and monitor everything (Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate and PH) closely, you may find that the PS is totally superfluous.

There is no hard an set rule. And I would suggest being wary of anyone who says that you must definitely use or definitely not use one.

Tom

[reefrunner69]

I agree skimmers are optional, I have seen too many very nice algae free systems that don't use one to think otherwise. I personally use one and I tend to recommend them, I think there benefits outweight their drawbacks, but alot of the necessity would depend on the system they are in. In a FOWLR they are far from a necessity, but still beneficial, especially for a new aquarist.

As for timer or no timer... if the skimmer is ew, you will definitely want to run it 24/7 until it breaks in, once broken in it shouldn't return the bubbles to the tank. From that point, you can put it on a timer or continue to run it 24/7, I run mine 24/7, but know many people that run them on a timer, for various reasons. I've never used your particular skimmer so I am unsure of where the air input might be, or how to turn it down. It seems you might need to turn the flow down with those skimmers, which would in turn reduce the amount of air being introduced.

[twkenny]

Regarding the timers...what have you heard that seems to work well?
Sorry to barge in on your thread...

[Phiberop]

I have decided to let it run for a while and see what will happen. I already had to dump some stuff out of the collection cup so it must be doing something. The bubbles are only in the one side of the tank and I hope that they will go away. Thanks for the advise.