First skimmer

So I'm new to the hobby, and got my first skimmer today. Tank has been up for 3 months or so.

I got an aquac remora with a maxijet 1200 on it... and wow... within literally 15 minutes - i had a good amount of filth in the cup.

I left it on for a few hours while I was at school tonight - and returned to find a good amount more. (see crappy phone pic below).

I also got a KH test and phosphate test to add to my kit, so now I can test for pretty much everything. It's a great feeling knowing exactly what is going on in the water.

I have finals in 2 weeks, but once they're over, I'll post a full thread of my progress from start to where I am now. Until then, bathe in the blurry, wondrous pictures from the iphone.

 

Skimmer looks like it is working as it should---congrats!!! Looks like you have a cyano issue (Red Slime). Try increasing your flow a little. You could also try some Chemi-Clean. Just follow the directions to the letter. Now that you have a skimmer, it may not come back after you get rid of it.

 

Yeah, algae algae algae. I'm winning the war slowly. I just changed the position of my powerhead to target the lesser areas of circulation. I'll be adding a fuge with some mangroves pretty soon to help get rid of the nitrates.

I want to steer clear of any chemicals for a while... keep them as a last resort.

 

Good to hear you are getting it naturally. The only reason you have to watch Cyano, is because it depletes 02.

 

Good to know. I've read into it just a little, but definitely not enough. To be totally honest, when I first set up the tank, I welcomed the idea of some algae, just to give it some color.

Now that it's here, oh man, do I love the way my clean tank used to look.

This skimmer is way too loud to sleep with, so I'll be running it only during the day at this point.

I do have one question - the mircro bubbles that it pushes into the tank.... I realize they're temporary, and will cease within about a week.

Are they bad for the fish? I realize they must alter the pH.. but other than that, do they affect the fish in any negative way?

 

They make a bubble trap / surface skimmer box for the Remora.

 

I have the same skimmer & pump, don't worry about the micro bubbles, they will dissapear after it breaks in. Give it a week or a little more and you'll be good to go. The bubbles will not hurt anything in the tank.

I wouldn't recommend the pre-skimmer box, I've heard it can be a headache. You have to maintain the water at a very certain level to have it work correctly, if it drops below that level the pump will run dry and burn out.. So unless you are constantly around to monitor and top-off or have an auto top-off device it would be a waste of $ IMO.

As far as the red slime, I battled it in my tank for about a month+ and am just beating it, you need to find the source of it or it will def keep coming back. I bought chemi-clean but decided against dosing so I could find the source. A few pointers I used to help my red slime:

- cut back on your lighting cycle
- clean all filters/pumps/powerheads
- rinse any frozen food
- siphon out as much red slime as you can
- do larger water changes (I went from 5g per week to 10g on my 55g)
- use ro/di water only
- cut back on feeding
- ramp up circulation in dead areas
- replace any old bulbs
- run a reactor with PO4 remover

Adhering to many of those steps, my front sandbed/rocks are finally clear of the red slime, it's still a bit on the back areas but 75% gone & looking clean again.

best!

 

Get a paper towel (a good thick one like brawny) and fold it up into a little rectangle. Then use it to cover over the pipe on the left hand side just underneath the cup (the 3 chambers). That should quite it down a little bit and cut down on the suction sound.