Thoughts On External Skimmers?

[Zach]

Like you I had no space in my sump so I purchased a Reef Octopus 5000 external skimmer. These are very well made, I clean the skimate cup once a week. There is a overflow connection in the cup that you can drain to a bucket but I have never had to use it, the skimate is thick and dark. This model has a recirculating pump but makes very little noise. The only real noise is where the water coming from the skimmer dumps back into the sump, but if you install the dump water pipe low enough in the sump it will be silent. This is by far the best skimmer I have tried, its costly but works perfectly.

Good advice. I'll look into that model

Sent from my SM-G903W using Tapatalk

 

[Zach]

I'm on the fence weather it's a myth or not...I believe if I remember correctly a properly sized skimmer will remove only 20 - 35% of the measurable Total Organic Carbon (TOC) in reef tank, that said you hear about people unintentionally ending up with a ULNS tank....probably caused by a combination of other factors but not limited to skimming all the toc out of the tank. I guess it also depends on what type of corals you keeping,softies vs sps and the water conditions that they prefer.

I think there's a lot to be said for matching your skimmer to the type of system you're running apposed to the size. I'm basically only keeping LPS and softies so I'm not as concerned about getting a big skimmer that works really well. I just want to remove the absolute worst to try and keep algea under control.

Sent from my SM-G903W using Tapatalk