protein skimmer to powerful for my tank?

i am setting up a 30 gallon tank and a friend of mine has a protein skimmer that has a 530gph powerhead attached to a 80 - 150 gal tank skimmer. before i give him the money for it, is it to powerful for a 30 gallon?

 

I would say yes unless you have a massive bioload. If you see an upgrade of tanks in the future to that size range then it would be a good purchase. It is likely to strip your impurities out very fast and could shock your corals and clams. Your fish should be OK.

 

I read an article awhile back about protein skimmers being too large for a tank and it suggested that the opposite of what 2in10 said could be true. In order for the skimmer to work it has to build up a nice head of foam that will slowly overflow into the collection cup. If the bioload of the tank is not large enough to form a nice head on the oversized skimmer than it will not function and organics will build up in the tank until there is enough to form a head and remove via the skimmer. This would result in an overall higher concentration of organics in the water column.

Sorry 2in10 I do not mean to step on your toes you give awesome advice and always help me out and I completely agree that if upgrading is in the future than the skimmer would still be a great purchase

 

I haven't seen that article but it does sound reasonable. I know my skimmer which is rated for a lightly stocked 150 does not always produce skim but it does seem to keep a head most of the time. When I had my GFO reactor running it did not always have a head.

I am sure my lightly stocked 75 with 112 gallons in the system including an algae fuge does not stress the skimmer.

 

I wish I saved the article. It basically said a skimmer should be rated for 1-1.5X the tank you put it on for a normal bioload. So for the OP a 30-45gal skimmer would be ideal if he is stocked normally.

The only part I have a hard time grasping is it did not mention anything about the size of the neck. Obviously the larger the skimmer is rated for the larger the neck and collection cup would prob be but a 150gal skimmer from company a is not the same as from company b. Also I did not see any tables or graphs with any actual test data to backup the claims so take it for what its worth, just another piece of information that sounds really good and makes sense to give you something to think about

 

Most companies rate for heavy , normal and light so you just need to find the info for comparison. Easier said than done on finding. Generally the mentioned tank size is for low loads. Some give ranges so that could give you a reasonable idea on heavy versus light load capabilities.