What type of skimmate am I looking for?

I have a c-skim 1200.

It seems to be an animal and pulls out a lot, although I find the fine tuning to be annoying. I once had it where I was getting this thick, dry-ish foam. WHich seemed to be best result, but I had to move it around and messed up where the dial was and since then I've only been getting a more wet foam. More watery.

Should my skimmate be more brown or dark? I would think it's an indicator of the amount of filth it's pulling out, and the lighter should be better, but I'm also wondering if I have too much liquid coming out with the foam.

 

Actually the cleaner the tank the darker and drier the skimmate typically is, but of course that depends on many factors including how you have your skimmer tuned

 

When you messed the dial up you moved it to do more of a wet skim. If you want more foam thats dry skimming you want to figure out which way you bumped it. Did you mess with the depth of the skimmer?

 

this is what my skimate looked like after first week of having it run.

 

Dr. frag is the skimmer man his name should be Dr.skimate

 

No, I hate skimmers Jerry!!! I wish I knew how to work with acrylic!

 

I need to it sit and tweak and twerk and get it running properly. The whole problem is space and lack of a stand. I am in the same position I was in with the lights where it's hard to spend money on a stand for a 30 gallon tank that I'm dying to get get rid of, so it's on this computer desk that I have turned backwards.

It's "ghetto", but the sump fit in properly and the tank fit on it perfectly. The Trouble comes in the lower half and how cramped it is, cause I have an independant cannister behind the sump/wet/dry, and the skimmer is too big to fit in the tiny 10 gallon tank sump. So it's wayyyyy behind and it kills my arm to fit back there. I'm gonna have to sacrifice and get this thing optimized, or else I'm gonna be "spinning top in mud".

 

I get the same issue when ever I clean out the cup. I put it back and it takes a couple days to get it to foam.... I just think that it is so clean it doesnt push anything out....I have to just let it be and stop tweeking it so much..

 

Oh, I wanted to ask. Should I be looking for a high pilar of water and small section of bubbles or a lower pilar of water and more build up of bubbles?

cause as I had it for a while the water went halfway up the "neck" and i left it till the bubbles grew up and over the "thoat" into the cup. That way was slow. It took about two weeks for the cup to fill about 2/3. BUT there was a thick layer of mock.

 

I disagree with the notion of drier skimming is a cleaner tank. Wet skimming will cause a salinity fluctuation by removing saltwater than then typically gets added back during top offs with RO/DI. But, there are compounds that don't attach real easily to a bubble in the short contact time in most skimmers. By wet skimming, you actually increase the amount of organic compounds the skimmer pulls out. When dry skimming, you only get what attaches to a bubble. With wet skimming, you get whats attached to the bubble but you also get some that isn't attached thats still in the water.