Can you over skim?

[dirty59rt]

I've got a 70g that i've been running a euroreef es5-3 on for almost a year now. I usually run it all the time unless i feed. I haven't had good growth in my corals and i've checked just about everything. Just recently i did a big water change, cleaned the sand pretty good too. Since then my skimmer just goes nuts so i haven't run it in over a week. Some stuff in the tank seems to be doin better. Just puffing out more. Like my frogspawn and plate coral and blasto. Was i over skimming? Is that possible?

[Horace]

yes its possible. When you overskim your stripping trace elements and other stuff out of the water that you want in there. So not only does your salinity drop over time with skimming, so does all the rest of the good things you want to keep in there.

[dirty59rt]

I see... Ok well i'm gonna leave the skimmer off for awhile longer cause things are lookin a little better in my tank. Then i'll start skimming after another week and maybe put it on a timer or just run it every few days.

[Fatboy]

Everybody has a different opinion about skimming....... For example, if you ask the owner of the January TOM, he will tell you that that is impossible.

He has a 90 gallon tank plus 60 more gallons in the sump and frag tank, and he is running a Deltec 1004 skimmer

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-01/totm/index.php

The AP1004 is a skimmer designed to skim heavy loaded tanks up to 1200 gallons.......

Please take a look at his pictures and you will see how wonderfull corals he has.

I have a 150 gallon tank which I skim with an AP702 designed for tanks around 500 gallons and let me tell you that my tank has never looked better.

[dirty59rt]

That is a fantastic tank... That's how i'd like mine to look. It just doesn't look healthy and the corals don't seem very happy. My calc and alk are good and stay consistant since i added the calc reactor. I do water changes. Everything checks good... What am i doing wrong?

[ONEMANBAND]

I do not think that a small euroreef is capable of overskimming a 75 reef tank.