protein skimmer questions

[nodoubt471]

ok now i have this stupid protein skimmer that you guys are all gonna laugh at on my 20G FOWLR (for now). it is a red sea berlin airlift. is this any good? it seems to fill up the cup pretty fast, and bubbles away happily but is it really doing its job? should i invest in a more expensive protein skimmer? what would you guys suggest? just shopping around for now. but i was thinking about eventually moving to a reef... we shall see.

oh and i rescued this hatian pink tipped anenome. now that i have it im frightened to put anything else in the tank with it (invert wise). i read this awful review that said that they would eat other anenomes and whatnot. is this true? should i try to get rid of it? i feel bad because it was living in such squalid conditions before i took it home, but i dont want it terrorizing my tank.

 

[Wally]

Kate,

Heres my 0.02, I believe that as long as the skimmer is taking out the brown stinky goop (thats technical for skimmate) that it is doing some good.

Do you have adequate lighting for the anemone ?

 

[SquishyFish]

The short verison on how a skimmer works. The longer the bubbles are in contact w/ the water the more DOCs they will pull out. This is accomplished by 2 methods. Either a longer tube or pushing the bubbles down through the water column and allowing them to float back up. This effectively doubles the lenght of exposure. If yours is short or doesnt push many bubbles, it will not be as effective. As Wally said...if your getting a nice thick goop..yours is working. But, a more advanced one will work better. If your going to head to either a heavily fed FO or a reef, I would put the best one you can afford on the tank.

I have an article that is much more indepth on how they work if you would like to read it.

HTH

Squishy

 

[fishfreek]

We got an article aswell.

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/showquestion.php?faq=2&fldAuto=13

 

[Wally]

Mr. Freek, I have a question, Isnt it true that if we are normal people before we get into reefing that we all turn into Fish Freeks before too much time passes by?