Wet Skimmate Water Changes?

[Newreeflady]

This seems interesting for sure. I would worry though about forgetting and having it overflow. One possibility is to employ a float switch. So, perhaps:

1) add water to a safe level in your sump to where if the power shut off it would not overflow.
2)Then, divert the skimmate to a reservoir putting a float switch in at the level where the water collected would equal the water added.
3) connect that float switch to the skimmer pump to be sure it shuts down before pulling out more water than was added in.

I'm going to think about how I might employ such a system...

[waldomas]

What about this?

- Set to skim wet w/ skimmate emptying a small percent to total.

- Have mixed SW to desired SG (1.025-1.026).

- When skimmate collector is full, replace extracted volume w/ mixed salywater.

- Have ATO to replace evaporation.

With this set-up the salinity would lower slightly as skimmate is produced and the ATO replaces that volume with fresh water. That is why a collector volume limit should be set (relative to total tank volume) to minimize SG swings.
When the SW is added, the ATO wouldn't activate until evaporation brings sump level down and raises SG back to desired level.

Specific gravity should stay within a tight range and "reset" with every cup empty.

What do y'all think?

[waldomas]

Or... just add mixed SW at desired (or slightly less) SG raiseing sump level and causing skimmer to skim wet. This added volume should be the same as the collector cup volume and be replaced when the cup is full.
An ATO would replace evaporation w/ fresh water.

This would probably be easier and have similar results with regaurds to SG and its fluctuations.
Like a COS wave instead of SIN.

[Lyfey]

Or have a ATO setup normally and have a gravity drip of fresh saltwater?

[waldomas]

Originally Posted by Lyfey

Or have a ATO setup normally and have a gravity drip of fresh saltwater?

Would that not raise the SG by lessening the ATO amount by the amt. of fresh SW dripped?

I want to keep the SG as stable as possible.

[cal_stir]

i use an aqualifter pump on a timer to add salt water to my sump daily, i have a 90gal tank and a 80 gal sump with @ 50gal in it. the pump pumps @ 1gal per hour so i run it 2hrs a day, this raises my sump @ 1in. causing my bubble magus to overflow which i have connected to the house drain, the skimmer overflows till the level drops back to normal, i have no ATO, i mix my water to 1.020 and this maintains my tank at 1.025. i perform a monthly vacuuming of @ 10gal as well. the skimmate is light tea coloured when overflowing.

[rocride]

this is interesting but i have a couple questions from a newbie perspective in the hobby

why the small water changes?
Why not use an aqualifter or the like on a timer to pump out and in?
and for 200g how much freshwater would you have to add to change your reading from 1.026 to 1.027

i like the idea of doing a gallon a day or something like that,seems less intrusive but i'm wondering what you base your wc amount on,nitrates,phosphates,trace, the big three or simply because we do water changes at 10-15-20% of system volume

sorry i totally haven't read through this thread yet but was recently reading up on the the genisis sytem and might be something i look into wether it be a diy or a plug and play...

[waldomas]

Its not the idea of just a water change, its "wet skimming" to concentrate the change!

[rocride]

wow,i should have picked up on that...i like it

subscribed

[rickcSMF]

A very interesting topic indeed.


At first it made perfect sense to me. Then as I read though, a there were two people that asked some questions (trail and jonbrav.) that got me thinking...

I'm no math whiz, but I'm just trying to push the logic through. Other than forcing someone to perform water changes, and clean their skimmer, is it really doing much more?

I'm not trying to sound like a negative Nancy, I'm just trying to see where to difference is quantifiable.


What I mean is, lets say a set at optimum settings a skimmer removes X amount of detritus/organics a day... running it wet, should'nt change that fact, only dilute this amount of "X" into the rest of the "wet" skimmate right?

I mean isn't a ton of lead weigh the same as a ton of feathers, even though a ton of feathers takes up significantly more volume... as does this water we're replacing?

All I can see it doing is not allowing the skimmer to fully perform its function : to isolate and remove unwanted detritus/organics.

Instead, now we're saying that its now better to just concentrate them and replace the water caught in the process? I mean if before I did this method, I only did 20% monthly changes, now with this method, I now do 80%, are my results really quantifiable? Would I get the same results just doing the 80% changes? Or is it just the fact that this method forces me to do the 80% change that I normally wouldn't of?

Again, I think there's something to this, I just curious in the proof.

[Elliott]

Originally Posted by rickcSMF

A very interesting topic indeed.


At first it made perfect sense to me. Then as I read though, a there were two people that asked some questions (trail and jonbrav.) that got me thinking...

I'm no math whiz, but I'm just trying to push the logic through. Other than forcing someone to perform water changes, and clean their skimmer, is it really doing much more?

I'm not trying to sound like a negative Nancy, I'm just trying to see where to difference is quantifiable.


What I mean is, lets say a set at optimum settings a skimmer removes X amount of detritus/organics a day... running it wet, should'nt change that fact, only dilute this amount of "X" into the rest of the "wet" skimmate right?

I mean isn't a ton of lead weigh the same as a ton of feathers, even though a ton of feathers takes up significantly more volume... as does this water we're replacing?

All I can see it doing is not allowing the skimmer to fully perform its function : to isolate and remove unwanted detritus/organics.

Instead, now we're saying that its now better to just concentrate them and replace the water caught in the process? I mean if before I did this method, I only did 20% monthly changes, now with this method, I now do 80%, are my results really quantifiable? Would I get the same results just doing the 80% changes? Or is it just the fact that this method forces me to do the 80% change that I normally wouldn't of?

Again, I think there's something to this, I just curious in the proof.

The reason for skimming wet is to replace the skimmate volume with fresh seawater, so one is replacing the dirtiest water with the cleanest. This results in a very efficient water change. If one skimmed dry there would not be sufficient volume to replace. Make sense?

[scubasteve06]

Doesn't wet skimming not remove the more concentrated heavier organics though that dry skimming does? I'd like to see some pictures of people's skimmate that do this method, what kind of skimmer they are using, and how often they employ this method.

[rickcSMF]

From what I've read on skimmers, the 2 biggest factors in what is removed is the size of the air-bubbles and the length they are in contact with the water.

But there is a good following of people who (as posted prior) say that running wet and running dry removes different things, so people run 2 skimmers on a system. Yet another interesting idea.

I'd like to see some skimmer makers post here to give some insight as to optimal running conditions, and see if we can test this method. I think there might be something to it.

Its just that showing a pic of the water removed from the skimmer vs the water from the tank isn't real proof, because I'm sure in that scenario, I could take out the "dry" skimmate from the skimmer, add it to the water removed, and it would be VERY close to the shade of the wet skimmate. Thus the reason for a test.

[pinetree]

I tried this w/ last water change. Very simple solution to folks concerns about changing salinity:
When I tuned skimmer up to pull more for water change, I simply replaced my ato's container fresh water with SW.
When I finished, I tuned the skimmer back and replaced the sw in ATO system back to ro/di water.

[d0ughb0y]

ok, so I tried this today for the first time, and it seems the skimmate I am getting is quite clear (but frothy) unlike those shown in the pictures here. I'd say I am skimming about a gallon in 4 hours. am I supposed to skim slower? are all you guys who tried this getting yellowish skimmate? Even if I skim wet, I normally get yellowish skimmate in my collection cup after a day. I know I am skimming faster now and collecting the skimmate in a 5 gallon bucket.

I moved my ATO line from my freshwater reservoir to my 5 gallon fresh saltwater mix bucket. I am thinking with this setup, wouldn't the new water getting in via ATO get skimmed out (or part of it)?

my sump can handle maybe 1 gallon before the return pump starts sucking air, so skimming out 5 gallons first is out of the question.
I am sure the skimmate will contain some organics, just was not expecting it to be completely clear.

[Gary Majchrzak]

plug in the ATO after performing the wet skim water removal

I've been doing wet skimmate water changes for several years now and I believe removing water via wet skimming is much more effective than simply removing water from the display. I don't run 'wet' 24/7 however...

[d0ughb0y]

so do you mean adding new saltwater after skimming is better than replacing the water during skimming?

if I do that, I can only do 1 gallon at a time since I have a small sump and can only go 1 gallon before the return pump starts sucking air. I do a 5 gallon water change each week. so unless I can skim out all 5 gallons at once, doing it 1 gallon at a time would not be any better than replacing the water while skimming, because I will then be adding 1 gallon of new saltwater to skim out the next gallon and so on.

[Gary Majchrzak]

is there any way that you can increase the capacity of your sump thus allowing you to remove more water during a wet skim-out?

[d0ughb0y]

Not really. I think my current wet skimming setup would still export out more organics than pumping out 5 gallons of old water. I'll try this for a month or two and see how it goes.

[Lynx113]

Originally Posted by cal_stir

i use an aqualifter pump on a timer to add salt water to my sump daily, i have a 90gal tank and a 80 gal sump with @ 50gal in it. the pump pumps @ 1gal per hour so i run it 2hrs a day, this raises my sump @ 1in. causing my bubble magus to overflow which i have connected to the house drain, the skimmer overflows till the level drops back to normal, i have no ATO, i mix my water to 1.020 and this maintains my tank at 1.025. i perform a monthly vacuuming of @ 10gal as well. the skimmate is light tea coloured when overflowing.

Bloody Brilliant if you ask me. Automatic water changes.

[waldomas]

Originally Posted by cal_stir

i use an aqualifter pump on a timer to add salt water to my sump daily, i have a 90gal tank and a 80 gal sump with @ 50gal in it. the pump pumps @ 1gal per hour so i run it 2hrs a day, this raises my sump @ 1in. causing my bubble magus to overflow which i have connected to the house drain, the skimmer overflows till the level drops back to normal, i have no ATO, i mix my water to 1.020 and this maintains my tank at 1.025. i perform a monthly vacuuming of @ 10gal as well. the skimmate is light tea coloured when overflowing.

I think it would be best if you added newly mixed saltwater to the sump close to the return pump and after the skimmer as my skimmer tends to go a little crazy when I add the newly mixed water.

[the_real_brian]

I modded my MCE600 this morning with a drain hose coming off the skimmer cup and running to a 5 gallon bucket. I've been fighting cloudy water ever since I returned to reefing a year and a half ago and even on its best days my tank water had a haze to it.

Well, after just three hours of wet skimming with about 1 quart of skimmate produced my tank water is clearer than it has ever been.

I'm so happy...yeeeee!!!

[liz62]

Originally Posted by JMBoehling

Little Update:

I took the Saltwater offline from the float. Back to just using Kalk. What I do now is whenever my skimmate reaches 1 gallon, I empty the bucket (Skimmate) and add 1 cup of Salt to my reef (Along with Calcium and Magnesium). I am using a small fish net with the ultra fine brine mesh to hold the salt. I made a little holder that holds the fish net and salt in the overflow of my reef and SLOWLY mixes the new salt into my reef over a two hour time frame.

I still keep the Venturi intake tube in my 5 gallon skimmate bucket so the Maximum skimmate I can remove via my skimmer is 2 gallon (Just in case my bristle worm or snails decide the breed and cause the skimmer to go nuts )

All in all, my tank is looking better than ever using this method, and now I can keep my PH and ALK higher just dripping Kalk

Later,

Jim

Are you saying that you put a cup ( 1/2 cup) of dry salt in a mess bag and throw it into the sump to disolve? Can you do this?
I always thought that SW had to mixed for 24 hours before being added to the tank?
I have an RO/DI ATO in my sump and I manually make up SW for bi-weekly water changes - however if I can do the wet skimming thing and just throw a bag of dry salt into the sump afterwards then I am on board.
Eager to hear more on this!!

[liz62]

anyone?

[the_real_brian]

Originally Posted by liz62

anyone?

I guess it would depend on the percentage of water you just skimmed out. If it's a small amount compared to your total water volume you shouldn't notice adverse changes in pH.