Skimmers and Nitrates

I normally do not run a skimmer on my reef tank since I have corals that prefer the water to not be too pristine; xenia, polyps, mushrooms, duncans; but I do try to keep the water quality fairly high for the frogspawn and acans. Awhile ago when running a skimmer for about a month my xenia colony actually looked terrible and after taking it off their growth exploded. I have been running without one now for a few months
Fast forward to today, I have been feeding the corals fairly heavily to help my acans recover from some sort of damage. They have come back pretty well but with all the feedings my water quality went downhill a little even with a good CUC and fish to eat the scraps. ammonia and nitrite are still 0 but my nitrates went from being 0-5 to being 10-15 and my phosphate was 0.5 with API. There is minimal algae growth, mostly on the glass, but nothing that the weekly magfloat cant handle.

Question is about skimming, it does not remove nitrates or phosphate correct? Just the organics that would break down into nitrates? I put the skimmer back on and plan on running it and skimming wet for a week, following it up with a 30% WC with RO/DI water. I had been using tapwater for the 6months the tank has been set up and made a 20% WC with RODI water last week. Was doing a 10% WC with tapwater weekly beforehand

 

Correct the skimmer only removes solid organic matter ( fish food, poop, ect) that will later turn into nitrates and phosphates.

You said you have been using tap water for over 6 months on your tank? And you had no negative effects?

The two water changes sounds like a good plain I would just keep it two 20% water changes though your nitrates arnt crazy high and its better to make changes slow and steady than all at one.

Hope that helps ;D

 

Thats for the advice, yea used tapwater since setup without any issues. Only hair algae I have growing is on a powerhead and of course the normal algae that grows on the glass. Had a small patch of cyano maybe 2X2 inches worth that I had to scrub off a few times but it has yet to return in over a month.

Im only switching to RO/DI to help protect all the corals and fish since tapwater is so unreliable. I also figured that it will be easier to maintain alk and ph.

Will skimming wet for a week really help all that much in the overall quality of the water?

 

I had my skimmer die on me once when I was out of town and my nitrates shot up to about 30. Now weather my dad over feed the fish had anything to do with it we will never know lol. Even when I feed my fish in front of my dad he always says they look hungry you have to feed them more than that lol.


Skimming will only stop and or slow down the nitrate levels from increasing in your tank. The only way to reduce nitrates would be water changes

 

That is my feeling but since I had the heavy feedings the past couple weeks to help nurse some acans back to health I wanted to remove the organics. My nitrates were only around 2.5 without running a skimmer beforehand but shot up to closer to 10ppm, tested at closer to 15ppm at a lfs after being in a bag with a coral I was swapping back in for about an hour. I am doing the WC to help bring them down, they are back to around 5ppm now, but was thinking there may still be a build up of stuff not yet broken down and I wanted to run the skimmer to help pull it out before it causes another nitrate spike.

 

Yea that sounds like a good plan you should be fine

 

Here's an excellent article on skimmers, by Randy Holmes-Farley. There's a great break down of what exactly they remove from the water column.

What is Skimming? by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

Also, even though you've switched to RODI now, your LR and substrate could have absorded a lot of phosphate and other fun stuff from when you were using tap water. It then slowly leeches back out. Trust me, I know from personal experience. ;-)

 

Are you saying all my LR, and my massive chaeto basket do nothing to help reduce No3 and PO?

 

Good article thanks for sharing! I used the BRS Pukani rock which I believe has had issues in the past leeching nitrates and phosphates from reads in other forums so it would not surprise me.

 

you can also hook up a bio pellet reactor to lower No3.