overskimming?

[griffithimage]

I have a 45g with a 40 g sump and a friend gave me his skimmer rated for 375g. Can I hook it up? What are the consequences? Is it possible to run the skimmer for just part of the day?

[HumbleLobster]

Skimming for just part of the day is something that a lot of us do. I do it for noise reasons, but if you're afraid of over skimming you can just run if for 12 or 8 hours a day using a simple $10 timer.

[luke33]

It is very rare that people overskim. What skimmer is it and yes if its too big you can run it half the day, or at night only.

[shred5]

The problem I see is sometimes a skimmer can be to big for a tank and it never skims. It sometime can never produce enough foam to rise up the neck if it is to big...

What type of skimmer is it... Most of the time the ratings are way to high...


Dave

[griffithimage]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11651350#post11651350 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by shred5
The problem I see is sometimes a skimmer can be to big for a tank and it never skims. It sometime can never produce enough foam to rise up the neck if it is to big...

What type of skimmer is it... Most of the time the ratings are way to high...


Dave

It's an Octopus NW 220

[thor32766]

i think that will do fine on your tank.

[luke33]

Should be just fine. Skimmers are highly overated. That was an awesome gift though!

[akaatomic]

I don't believe that you can overskim. Your skimmer will stop producing foam when the water is clean and nothing will skim. Some argue that skimming wet is overskimming because your more likely to take a greater percentage of nutrients along with the waste (some turn off skimmers during feeding for this reason). If anything it will be an annoyance because your foam level will sit further down in the neck and you'll build up more sludge there that you'll have to wipe out. I don't think that's too uncommon though.